


Unfinished Plaintana.

by xsaturated



Category: Glee
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsaturated/pseuds/xsaturated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PUCK/BLAINE/SANTANA - Written for a prompt at the "Blaine Sails A Ship Without Kurt" meme an age ago and never finished, this is basically me reconciling it will never be finished. Take care it is VERY AU (written during s2), not particularly Kurt or Klaine friendly and very dark in places. Also, Karofsky's characterization definitely does not match up to later depictions of him in the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfinished Plaintana.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Prompt: PUCK/BLAINE/SANTANA - long prompt is long
> 
> after blaine transfer to mckinely with his boyfriend kurt, kurt ignores blaine in favor of catching up with his friends. Blaine is slushied and puck and santana come to his aid. As the days go by it's puck and santana cleaning him up when he gets slushied or patching him up after he is checked into lockers instead of kurt who promised he'd be there for blaine. he understands that kurt missed his friends (he's missing wes and david like crazy) but being the boyfriend he should come first. 
> 
> slowly but surely he becomes friends with puck and santana. one day they enter glee together and are quietly discussing their plans to go up to columbus for the weekend to see a concert puck wanted to go to, go to the sushi place santana wanted to and go to the gay bar blaine reluctantly admitted he wanted to go to. 
> 
> Kurt informs Blaine they have plans for the weekend not knowing blaine had made plans with puck and santana. he tells kurt this. they get in a huge fight with blaine breaking up with kurt. that night he and puck stay over santana's (her parents are never home) and blaine is still upset so puck and santana comfort him the only way they know how: sex. they take his virginity. if you write this is want puck in blaine while blaine is in santana.

\--

In retrospect, Blaine’s starting to think that his penchant for making awful, spur of the moment decisions should have been taken into account when he first asked his parents about transferring to McKinley. That’s what good, plugged in parents would do right? They would take one look at McKinley’s reputation and laugh him out of their sight, because really, who in their right mind lets their teenager transfer out of Dalton Academy and in to somewhere like McKinley?

There’s a part of him that speaks with terrifying clarity at times like this. The part that tells him that this is what he deserves for letting regret rule his actions, for believing that transferring to a war-zone like McKinley was a legitimate way to confront the ugly voice inside his head that calls him a coward.

He swipes a sodden paper towel across his eyelids and when it comes back sticky and stained pink he thinks that this is his fault, for believing that he could ever be strong enough to handle this.

Kurt had asked (and hadn’t that been more of a suggestion, anyway?) and it had seemed so obvious, such a perfect resolution to all of those feelings he’d smothered since running from his old school. McKinley was an opportunity, a challenge to be tackled with Kurt conveniently right there to help him do it.

And, okay, maybe Kurt had more than a little to do with it.

They’d barely even made room for the word boyfriend in the Blaine and Kurt story before Kurt had been mad with excitement (determination) and saying he was going back. Blaine should have known then what that no-holds-barred enthusiasm meant. 

It’s not like he blames Kurt.

Kurt’s friends are immediate and real. Colourful and alive in a way that makes Blaine feel stale and faded sometimes, like an old photograph that’s worn away to shades of beige. They’re loud and messy and their edges clash in a way that places like Dalton smoothed away. 

It makes him feel like there’s a barrier between his world and theirs, like he’s looking out through a pane of glass (like maybe Dalton wasn’t the cage Kurt claimed it was after all, maybe it’s just Blaine who’s sealed away in his own little collector’s edition box, kept safe and untouchable for so long he’s forgotten what it’s like to be real.)

He can understand how Kurt could be caught up in it. Maybe Blaine’s been pulling back too, retreating rather than confronting, giving Kurt space so he can be swept up by friends he’d missed during his time in the cage, as he sometimes called it now with an odd, fond smile.

Still.

He grabs another paper towel from the stack he’d assembled earlier and dips it under the running tap. The syrup is drying, sticky on his skin, and he wonders if it too will be stained the same obnoxious cherry red that’s soaked deep into the weave of his shirt. Kurt had warned him once about wearing light colours. Maybe.

“That’s rough bro, Cherry stains like a bitch.”

Blaine’s pretty sure that he just jumped and, if the look on his face is anything to judge by, Puck had definitely seen it.

He mumbles, “You scared me,” as his eyes dart to Puck’s reflection in the mirror.   
The wry, you think?, expression on Puck’s face is something he should probably ignore, for his dignity’s sake at least.

He watches covertly in the mirror as Puck leans against a wall, catalogues the neat three feet that separate them between the efficient swipes of damp paper across his skin. Blaine knows that Puck’s watching him just as Puck no doubt knows that Blaine is watching him. He just doesn’t know why.

He hadn’t even heard Puck come in.

And okay, three weeks of McKinley’s jungle law should have taught him that ignoring his surroundings was just asking for any one of a hundred awful things to happen to him. Slushies, Blaine thinks as he swipes at the sticky trails that have slithered down his neck, are the least of his problems.

“You aren’t going to cry are you?”

Puck isn’t looking at him, not directly anyway, still leaning against the bathroom wall like he just hangs out in men’s bathrooms all the time. Which, well, Blaine’s pretty sure that there are a few dated George Michael jokes in there somewhere but he’s definitely above making them.

“No,” he says instead, staring determinedly at his own reflection and the irritated, too bright set of his eyes. He thinks he might have even convinced himself.

“Good,” Puck replies, “Because if I wanted to hang out with a dude who cries because he got a bit of slushy in his eyes, I’d hang with Karofsky.”

And Blaine’s pretty sure that the only time Puck’s even talked to him outside of the choir room was a vague grunting noise as they passed in the hallway at Kurt’s house one time. He isn’t even entirely sure that Puck knows his name. 

So, really he’s just wondering what that’s even supposed to mean as he turns to just look at Puck because, really, what?

Puck whistles low, his eyebrows crawling upwards as his eyes flicker down the sticky, clinging mess that once resembled his shirt and Blaine half-expects laughter or a repeat of Kurt’s exasperated earlier, don’t you know you shouldn’t wear colours like that?

Instead he gets a curiously even, “How many were there?”

He turns back to the sink as he replies, “Three,” and stares hard at the sticky mess of his hair as if he could will it back into it’s prior state. Puck lets out a vague noise that Blaine thinks might be impressed.

It’s not like he could forget the endless crawl of syrup and ice down his face, his neck, his chest while an entire hallway watched and a cluster of Letterman jackets walked away laughing. But, still, three seems excessive, like there must have been a point in there somewhere.

His hair, he decides as he plucks tentatively at a sticky curl, is unsalvageable. There’s only one thing for it. He ducks his head under the running faucet and sets to trying to coax the mess out with his fingers, the water turning sugary pink beneath the deluge of product and cherry syrup. 

Facing past regrets had been infinitely more appealing when it hadn’t involved trying to get corn syrup out of his hair in a school bathroom.

He re-emerges with water spilling down his face, dripping from his eyelashes and his chin. He blinks it free as he gropes for the paper towels and combs the dripping mess of his hair back with his fingers, glancing curiously at Puck’s reflection in the mirror.

He’s a tired parody of a bouncer at a nightclub, the way he’s staring at the door with his arms folded staunchly across his chest. Blaine wonders if maybe that’s the point.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with that thought now that it’s lurking around his head, so he pushes it away and studies the damp patches on his jeans with forced interest.

He’s pretty sure Kurt had once let slip something about always having a spare outfit in reserve, just in case, back when he was still trying to convince Blaine that McKinley wasn’t that bad. Now it makes considerably more sense. 

He tugs a hand ruefully through his hair like he could maybe make it behave and watches it flop limply back into place, heavy with water. 

“Don’t you have class?” he asks, because the statue routine is becoming unnerving and he will not believe that Puck is here to play look out for him.

“Geometry,” Puck replies like that explains everything. “Artie’s a better teacher than Baker is anyway.”

Puck seems to have no intention of going anywhere any time soon so Blaine turns, leaning back against the sink and following the flicker of Puck’s eyes as they once again trace the marbled mass of red down his chest. Blaine wonders about the odd, firm set of Puck’s lips and why he’s pushing away from the wall and shedding his Letterman jacket.

He feels the slow drip of his hair into the shoulders of his ruined sweater, the spreading damp at the back of his neck where water is mixing with melted slushy, but none of it really matters in the face of Puck closing the distance between them to drop his jacket down next to the sink before he’s tugging at the hem of his shirt.

Blaine’s pretty sure that whatever his face is doing can’t be attractive but the shirt Puck’s just tugged over his head is now being dangled wordlessly in front of Blaine’s nose so he’s pretty sure that it’s at least merited.

“What?” Puck asks when Blaine fails to do anything more than stare at it with wide eyes, “Does it clash with your shoes or something?”

“No,” Blaine repeats and reaches, bewildered, for the shirt as he adds a quiet, “Thank you.”

Puck shrugs his jacket back onto his shoulders, Blaine looking pointedly away from the unsubtle roll of muscle beneath the thin material of Puck’s undershirt as he reaches for the hem of his sweater. It clings to his skin as he tugs it over his head, the sticky film where slushy had soaked right through making him grimace before he tugs Puck’s shirt back over his head in it’s place.

It’s still warm, comfortingly so against his chilled skin and the smell that seems to be everywhere, overpowering even the sugary tang of artificial cherry, is both distinctively boy and what is probably Axe body spray. Somehow, in practice, it isn’t at all unpleasant. 

He tugs at the hem awkwardly and glances back at the mirror as it settles loosely over his smaller frame. The grey fabric is soft with wear and he has to push the sleeves up to his elbows because they hang nearly to his fingertips and Puck really isn’t that much taller than him but you wouldn’t know it. It isn’t awful.

“Thank you,” he repeats because somehow it seems necessary.

Puck shrugs and mutters, “Whatever,” but doesn’t leave. He hovers by the door as Blaine fruitlessly drags his fingers through his hair one last time and slings his satchel over his shoulder.

Puck trails him out of the bathroom and before Blaine can head off to attend the last twenty minutes of his Biology class Puck scoffs, “No way,” like he knows exactly what Blaine’s thinking and drags him off by the arm.

After a detour to Puck’s locker and dodging the teachers that might actually care they end up brazenly sitting outside in the courtyard, in full view of the windows in his Biology classroom. He wants to ask things like ‘why are you being nice to me?’ except that Puck had instated a firm no asking stupid questions rule when they’d sat down and has taken to plucking distractedly at the strings of his guitar.

And Blaine, well, he doesn’t know how to interpret that rule exactly, because what classifies as a stupid question in the brain of someone like Puck? So he stretches out over the concrete steps and soaks in the sun, closes his eyes against the light as he listens to the disjointed chords that fill in the silence between them.

For the first time in over a week he thinks that McKinley might not be so bad after all.

\--

When Kurt gasps an appalled, “What are you wearing?” that afternoon in the Choir Room, plucking at the soft gray material of Puck’s Henley with disapproving fingers and when it slips and bares more collarbone than before, he considers telling him what happened.

Except, well, Kurt actually looks happy, his arm linked with Mercedes’s as he pauses to take in Blaine’s attire. And he’s sure, for a second, in the way that Kurt’s eyes zero in on the shirt that Kurt must know but then he simply drops into the seat next to him, a hand dropping onto Blaine’s knee, and turns back to Mercedes to continue his prior conversation.

It feels like a dismissal (he’s sure it’s not supposed to).

Blaine stares at the pink blotches that have seeped into the soft leather of his boots and lets Mercedes and Kurt’s voices roll over him. At some point Tina drops down into a seat behind them and Blaine’s attention wanders until he’s wondering, for just a moment, what is happening at Dalton. What the Warblers are working on, if Nick has finally gotten his solo.

He has his phone in his hands before he even realizes and is halfway through thumbing out a horrifically sappy I miss you guys that he will never actually send when he feels the drag of a fingernail across his shoulder, snagging in the material of his shirt. Blaine looks up, his head tipping back until they meet Santana’s dark eyes. Her eyebrows rise just so as she laughs something that sounds like “Wanky” to herself, her fingers smoothing the fabric back into place as she settles into the seat behind him.

He should say something to her. Protest that whatever she’s thinking, she’s completely and utterly wrong because that smirk, the one he can feel directed at the back of his head, is suggesting things that would have Puck beating his face in sooner than helping him again. Blaine hasn’t entirely forgotten how the real world works.

He’s turning around in his seat and his mouth is open before he realizes, under the weight of her amused scrutiny, that he has no idea what to say. Then it doesn’t matter because Schuester’s striding through the door clapping his hands and babbling about being really excited for next week’s assignments and nobody is even pretending to listen, so Blaine turns around and slumps in his seat with Santana’s silent insinuations heating up his cheeks.

Schuester’s eyes are fixed on the whiteboard and Blaine’s fingers are tapping away at the edges of his phone, bewildered to find he’d somehow hit send on that terrifyingly honest text, when he feels the light trace of a finger across his shoulder blades. A nail tracing the stitching where PUCK is scrawled in thick black sharpie over the department store labels.

He squirms away from the intrusion and plays off Kurt’s questioning look with a smile, tries not to feel anything about the way that Kurt’s hand slips off of his knee when he turns back to the girls. 

He knows that if he so much as glances over his shoulder Santana will be smirking like she knows every secret he’s ever had and Kurt had warned him, once, about the dangers of Santana becoming interested in your life.

So when his phone buzzes in his hands and the screen lights up, the words Come back, glaring up at him he has to stuff his phone hurriedly back into his pocket, because there’s a part of him, that painfully honest part that he can’t seem to silence, that’s thinking I wish I could.

\--

Blaine’s hovering outside the Choir Room, sneaking looks at that same text for what must be the hundredth time in the past half hour and waiting for Kurt to catch up, when Santana slides an arm around his shoulders and tugs him into step with her.

“It’s adorable,” she’s saying with the kind of faux-sweetness that suggests an entirely different meaning to her words as she plucks at the sleeve of Puck’s shirt, “Like you’re wearing your boyfriend’s shirt.”

“Kurt’s my boyfriend,” he replies stiffly, wondering at how easily she’s able to lead him away.

There’s a pause, a sidelong glance, before she says, “Huh,” and her eyes return to the press of bodies ahead of them. 

Blaine knows that this is a game to her; that this is what Santana does, but still. There’s a part of him that needs to know.

“What do you mean?”

For a split second her smile drops and her eyes widen in surprise before she murmurs, “Wow,” and curls her fingers into his bicep as she guides him a little faster down the hall.

And, okay, what is that supposed to mean?

“I used to think you were kind of pathetic,” she tells him as they sweep around a corner and he glances futilely over his shoulder towards the choir room, “I mean, the hair for a start and there was that whole thing with you sucking face with Rachel Berry, I mean, everyone gets a drunk pass, but it was Rachel.”

He really has no idea where she’s going with this. Other than mildly insulting, that is.

“But this,” she gives him a look that might be classified as sympathetic, if Santana were to ever indulge in such an emotion, “This is tragic. You’re jealous over Hummel.”

He stares blankly at her. “I’m not-“

“You totally are,” she laughs back, “And worse, you’re jealous over Hummel’s hags.”

He so is not jealous. (Except he kind of is.)

“I’m not,” he tries again but ends up laughing over the end of it because, oh god he is tragic. He’s jealous of Kurt’s friends and missing his friends and his hair, apparently, really is that bad. He was never this person at Dalton.

At her pointed look he laughs and drags a hand through his hair, which, no doubt, has become a veritable fluffy mess in the drying process. He must look like he’s fresh from the commune. “Alright,” he agrees and waves his hands in concession, “I’m tragic.”

She smirks and one of her hands follows the path through his hair that his had just taken, says, “Good,” and then proceeds to shove all of her binders into his arms as she turns to face what he assumes is her locker.

He has no idea where Santana’s sudden interest in his personal life has come from or when, exactly, she’d decided personal boundaries didn’t apply to him. She’s probably just bored, but he ends up serving as her pack mule as she rearranges her locker.

“For the record,” she says as she swaps out the binder in his arms for a different one with a faint look of distaste, a finger skirting lightly beneath the neck of his shirt before she turns back to the locker, “Hummel looked like he wanted to set it and Puck on fire.”

And yeah, Blaine’s pretty sure that that isn’t true. Kurt had barely even looked at him during the entire practice.

She must catch the look on his face because she rolls her eyes and turns back to poke him hard in the chest as she says, “Some advice for you? Be less pathetic. People might actually stop mistaking you for a toy poodle.”

She takes a moment to check her makeup in the mirror in her locker door before she closes it with a resounding bang and casts him a blank look, like she’s wondering what he’s still doing there.

He really isn’t sure either.

She eyes him hard, glancing from her binders still tucked in the crook of his arm to what he assumes is the somewhat bewildered expression on his face and rolls her eyes again before seizing his free arm.

“Come on, Polly Pocket,” she says as she corrals him down the corridor towards the parking lot, “You can carry my stuff to my car.”

\--

His phone buzzes in his pocket as Santana’s driving away and the screen asks him: Where r u? sposed 2 b having coffee w/ M & R. He stares blankly at the screen unable to ignore the stab of annoyance at not being consulted on their plans before Santana’s advice fills his head and he forces himself to roll his eyes.

He’s being ridiculous.

Kurt is welcome to hang out with his friends. They are not one of those grossly codependent couples that can’t do anything without the other. He should be following Kurt’s lead. He thinks of the text from Jeff sitting in his inbox and smiles, already thumbing out his reply of, Can’t. Meeting up w/ Warblers.

Be less pathetic, Santana had told him. Blaine’s pretty sure he can manage that.

\--

The first time Blaine gets shoulder-checked into a locker he doesn’t see it coming.

He’s tired from driving back from Westerville late the night before and his Chemistry class is held in a different room on Thursdays so Blaine’s just trying to remember the room number, hesitating about whether he’s supposed to turn left or keep going when a shoulder slams into him and he bounces straight into the locker bay.

It hurts, in that having the air knocked out of you way, and he can feel the sharp protest from the tip of his shoulder blade reverberating down his spine as he struggles to keep his feet. The guy sauntering off down the hall is on the hockey team, he thinks, or maybe it’s basketball, not that it really matters.

What matters is the complete and utter lack of well, anything. A few people glance in his direction but no one says anything, even the guy who did it just walks away without even bothering to stick around and laugh at him.

He thinks that, maybe, their indifference is worse than the outright animosity he remembers from his old school.

Maybe he had been at Dalton too long.

“Strando’s a total douchebag,” Puck says from Blaine’s side. 

Blaine’s proud of himself for not jumping in surprise.

Puck’s hand is hovering like it wants to settle over Blaine’s shoulder before it just falls away and slips back into his pocket. The second bell rings and Blaine glances up, surprised at the empty halls, because he hadn’t even heard the first one. He must have been standing there for longer than he thought.

“Yeah,” Blaine murmurs noncommittally as he hitches the strap of his satchel up higher onto his shoulder. 

“C’mon, Anderson,” Puck offers and his hand reaches out again, actually closing over Blaine’s shoulder for a just moment this time as he stares determinedly at anywhere that isn’t Blaine’s face, “The school nurse is a total MILF.”

Blaine stares blankly as Puck starts to walk off, his fingers clinging to the leather strap of his satchel indecisively before Puck turns his head and snorts, “Are you coming or not?”

Blaine hurries to catch up.

\--  
Kurt keeps giving him strange looks.

He knows, because he can feel them burning into the side of his head as he picks his way through the edible parts of what’s found its way onto his lunch tray. He grimaces at the deep-fried glob that’s melded with his fork and tries to scrape it off on the side of his plate.

Mercedes and Rachel are much more covert about their staring but he still catches them looking when he reaches for his water with the wrong hand. He’s starting to wonder if there’s something on his face.

“You’re quiet,” Kurt finally breaks and while it looks like his eyes are fixed on his salad, Blaine catches the quick sidelong glances in his direction.

Blaine goes for a shrug but he’s pretty sure that the accompanying wince ruins the effect.

“Late night,” he replies, as Kurt turns in his seat to frown at him.

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

Blaine doesn’t have to look up to know that Mercedes and Rachel are staring or that Tina has glanced over from her conversation with Mike, he can tell by the sudden dip in volume around them.

“It’s fine,” he insists as cheerfully as he can because, while he wouldn’t mind talking to his boyfriend for once, the last thing he wants is to have this conversation in front of a whole panel of Kurt’s well meaning but painfully nosy friends.

Kurt’s never exactly been one for subtlety though so Blaine really should have expected the finger that jabs pointedly into what is well on it’s way to becoming a fairly spectacular bruise. His gasp and flinch away brings a look to Kurt’s face that effectively straddles the line between I knew it and livid.

“What happened?” Kurt demands, his fork dropping with a clatter to the table as he abandons any pretence of eating his lunch.

Blaine’s pretty sure he won’t be eating any time soon either so he places his own cutlery down and sighs. There’s a whole panel of ears that aren’t even pretending to not be listening in.

“Some guy shoved me into a locker,” he says quietly, firmly and hopes that Kurt understands the look he’s giving him to mean, not now please.

“Blaine,” Rachel sighs immediately and she’s leaning across the table, like she wants to put a hand on his arm in what he’s sure she’s decided to be the appropriate amount of concern to be displayed on such an occasion. 

And that studied expression of pity and understanding that she’s probably perfected in a mirror is exactly why he hadn’t said anything in the first place. The knowing, pitying look she’s giving him stirs up an irrational anger that he sometimes likes to think he’d left behind a long time ago.

Because he remembers what it was like before Dalton. He doubts anyone ever really forgets.   
He remembers feeling tired all the time, the frustration and anger that seemed to build upon itself with every passing day. He remembers feeling lonely in a sea of people and wondering how he could possibly be so different from them that none of them would look when someone pushed, would hear any one of those ugly words that were spat out. 

He remembers the growing weight of words and stupid, small injustices and then, in the aftermath of that stupid dance, he remembers looking in the mirror and realizing that he didn’t much like the boy that was angry all the time, so why should anyone else like him either?

Dalton had been a reprieve, somewhere to feel safe and warm and, god, admired for his talents. Somewhere where his worth was greater than the sum of his sexuality. And maybe the guy he’d been there, confident and composed and inoffensive and people-pleasing and part of the team, wasn’t anyone he was especially fond of either but at least everyone else had liked him.

They’re looking at him like they expect him to start crying, like he’s so fragile (what was it he’d called the Warblers, once? Privileged, porcelain birds?) and it isn’t exactly helping his attempts to ignore the voice that asks him what he thinks he’s doing here. He’s never been much for crying. They don’t know that.

He knows the light brush of Kurt’s fingers against the bone of his wrist is supposed to be comforting, but it’s only a reminder of Kurt’s empty promise that McKinley was a challenge they’d face together.

“I’m fine,” he tells them bluntly, moving his arm out of Kurt’s reach and thoroughly ignoring the knowing looks they trade in favour of stabbing his fork into a wilted slice of tomato and choking it down.

Their quiet sympathy is suffocating.

\--

Kurt is waiting for him when he pulls into the parking lot the next morning, leaning against the driver’s side of his Navigator with twin cups of coffee in his hand. They exchange wary looks as Blaine hoists his satchel onto his shoulder and locks his car door behind him, the awkwardness of yesterday’s lunchtime conversation and all the words that went unsaid hovering between them.

Kurt extends one of the cups, his lips twitching just a bit at the corner and it isn’t a concession and Blaine isn’t apologizing but it is coffee and Blaine’s never been able to say no to a medium drip made just the way he likes it.

Kurt’s fingers graze his shoulder under the pretence of smoothing wrinkles from Blaine’s cardigan and he feels a dull sense of guilt at his decision to turn his phone off last night as he accepts the cup and takes a long sip, thumb hooking beneath the strap of his satchel as they walk silently towards the doors. The quiet of it all soothes away some of his angry edges because it’s familiar, like something they might have done at Dalton.

It lasts all the way up until they reach Kurt’s locker and Rachel converges on them, Mercedes hot on her trail and they’re both talking over each other, at each other, through the blatant silence and Kurt’s getting sidetracked, unable to resist the shiny lure of tearing Rachel’s sartorial choices of the day to shreds.

And it isn’t that he doesn’t like them, because he does, really. It’s that however many times Kurt tries to squish them together into some strange foursome it never quite fits, like they’re all odd angles with no give and he just filters through the holes they make. 

He likes them and despite the decided awkwardness of situations best forgotten, he’s pretty sure he and Rachel have more in common than most of the people he calls friends, but he’s pretty sure that he will always think of them, above all else, as Kurt’s friends.

“I’ll see you later,” he offers as he goes into retreat, flashing them the kind of smile he usually reserves for the stage and taking a long sip of his coffee as he turns on his heel to head for his locker.

\--

He’s headed in what he’s fairly certain is the direction of the classroom where Kurt has fourth period English, running through a half-dozen scenarios which would break the stilted awkwardness between them, when fingers close around his wrist, spin him around and he’s being dragged back the way he came with an overly-friendly arm slung around his waist.

“You’re my duet partner,” Santana tells him as they pass the Biology classroom he’d just left.

Blaine has no idea what she’s talking about. 

“Pardon?” 

“Duet. Partners,” she repeats slowly, turning her head to stare at him like he’s mentally deficient, “I thought you Prep School kids were supposed to be smart.”

When he continues to stare at her blankly (because he’s sure Schuester hadn’t said anything about duets in the last week and he’d actually been listening) she rolls her eyes and mutters, “You’re lucky you’re cute, Pocket Gay.”

She tugs him through the doors to the library and they receive the immediate reproving stare of the nearest librarian, like she just knows that they’ll be trouble. Blaine’s never been on the receiving end of one of those stares in his life.

“Because you’re like, virginally new to this, I’m going to help you out here,” she says with blatant disregard for the shushing motions of the librarian, “Mr. Schue has a grand total of four lesson plans. He spent yesterday blabbing about how exciting it was going to be which brings us down to two. It’s too early in the year for Boys vs. Girls, he likes to save that for when he thinks we need motivating, which means that he’s holding a Duets competition. Again.”

She drops his arm the moment they reach what Blaine can now see is an extensive record collection and begins flicking distastefully through the C’s as she speaks, “I ain’t losing that competition again, Frodo, that dinner at Breadstix belongs to me. So we’re getting a head start.”

Blaine stares bemusedly as she wrinkles her nose at a Cat Stevens record and flicks on past it, his own fingers automatically beginning to flip through the F’s. “Why me?” he asks, glancing curiously at her from the corner of his eye.

His phone buzzes in his pocket but she slaps his hand away the moment he goes to reach for it. Blaine spares his hand a bemused look before turning back to stare at her.

“New kid,” she says as if it’s obvious while she skips over an entire section of Chicago records with barely contained revulsion, “Salmon-lips worked that angle like a pro last time and you have that whole charming, likable thing you do.”

She gives him a considering, thoughtful look as her hand hovers over the D’s, “I’ll bring the sex, you’ll bring that whole proud puppy vibe. They’ll eat it up.”

And, okay, Blaine is pretty sure that’s the second time she’s compared him to a dog in as many days. He’s hoping it isn’t going to become a thing (he’s heard Trouty Mouth. He could never live that kind of humiliation down).

“Fine,” he agrees, fingers toying with the edges of a Fleetwood Mac album, “But you really only had to ask.”

She gives him a vaguely incredulous look, like the thought of asking hadn’t crossed her mind. He’s pretty sure it hadn’t.

“It would be my honour to sing a duet with you,” he adds, because he’s almost certain that it’s the last thing she expects to hear. 

He tugs the Fleetwood Mac album out of the stack thoughtfully and blinks in surprise when she all but snatches it from his hands. She sets it firmly back in its proper place, her voice sharp as she says, “Don’t go overboard there, Scrappy Doo. I’m not looking for a new BFF, this is about winning.”

“Of course,” Blaine replies, ignoring the sting of her words by reminding himself of the million and one things that Kurt has told him about Santana, all of which seemed to amount to; all Santana really cares about is Santana.

“Huh,” Blaine murmurs, his eyes turning determinedly back to the records as he schools his face to something bemused and just a touch mocking. “No wonder you all sing so much Journey.”

The look she spares him over the cover of a Neil Diamond album (and oh, that alone gives her no right at all to look at him like that) is unimpressed and just a little suspicious. At least, it is until he tugs his iPod from his pocket and brandishes it at her with the ghost of a wry grin, “I think I have a better idea.”

\--

They sit shoulder to shoulder on the dark library carpet, sharing headphones with their backs pressed to the disorderly shelves in the abandoned History section and soaking up the barest hint of midday sun that’s streaming through the high windows. Santana had seized control of the iPod at the opening chords of the first Rogers and Hart tune and refused to give it back (and really, the “Do I look like Rachel Berry to you?” would have sufficed). 

“I’m surprised, Anderson,” she admits after what feels like hours of her skipping through songs with what he’d begun to think was a permanent sneer on her face, “There aren’t half as many Streisand tunes as I thought there’d be.”

Blaine kind of wants to point out that there have been no Streisand songs at all, that’s more Rachel’s speed, but he figures she’s going somewhere with this.

“How many of these songs did you and the Swallows cover, anyway?”

“Warblers,” he corrects immediately.

She smirks at him, hitches an eyebrow and he can almost recite her response of, “That’s not what he said,” along with her.

“Predictable,” he informs her dryly, “Puck used that one on my second day here.”

“You don’t mess with the classics,” she replies coolly.

“Classic implies that it was somehow funny the first time,” Blaine points out reaching over to snag the iPod back from her fingers, “And for the record, if we discounted every song the Warblers ever sung from the running we wouldn’t have much of a selection.”

Santana shoots him a vaguely amused look that tells him he’s probably said something kind of ridiculous, the kind of thing that makes Kurt roll his eyes or smile indulgently at him. 

He’s waiting for her to snatch the iPod back, as she has at least three times in the past half hour, but instead she just kind of cocks her head and looks at him before saying, “You’re actually almost interesting when you aren’t trying so hard to make people like you.”

“You’re actually almost nice when you aren’t trying so hard to make people hate you,” Blaine shoots back immediately and almost recoils at how vicious it sounds. He doesn’t remember this part of him at all.

They sit in silence, the opening chords of a Black Lips song jangling in their ears before Santana mutters a quiet, “Touché,” and snatches the iPod back from his fingers.

\--

He doesn’t know, exactly, how he ends up here.

Well that isn’t true.

There’d been an alarm ringing out at an ungodly hour of the morning, his phone buzzing off of the bedside table onto the floor before his blindly groping hand could find it. By the time he recovered it he was reluctantly too awake, blinking blearily at the cheery Crew Training Starts Today! :) displayed across the screen.

He’d been halfway to Westerville, sipping at a thermos full of black coffee and rugged up in sweats and a hoodie, the mess of his hair disguised by a hastily thrown on beanie, before he realized.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t just turn around and go back to bed.

Instead, well, instead Thad is blinking curiously at him from the seat of his rowing machine, a slow smile spreading over his face and saying, “Couldn’t stay away, then?”

Blaine pulls a face as he says, “Long story,” and drops his gym bag next to Thad’s and gestures questioningly to the empty machine next to him.

Thad replies with a look that seems to ask, ‘Really?’ and Blaine can’t help the faint twitch of his lips as he sinks down onto the seat. 

The gym is all but deserted at this time of morning anyway and the slow whir of the machines falling into the same rhythm is familiar. Soothing, somehow. It’s strangely reassuring that, whatever else has changed, it still only takes moments for them to fall into well-worn patterns. 

The pull and push of arms and legs builds in the comfortable silence until his muscles start to burn and it’s like Thad senses the first hint of weakness, of distraction, because he picks that precise moment to ask in a far too polite voice, “So, how is McKinley?”

As if in answer his shoulder throbs accordingly and Blaine frowns and decides to pick up the pace. Thad follows suit.

“It’s -,” Blaine struggles to find a word to fill that space, gnawing at his lower lip and glancing over to find that Thad is waiting expectantly, poised and interested, and it’s almost too much. “It is what it is.”

Blaine can practically see the wheels turning in Thad’s head as he frowns and it’s weird, he’s sure, that he’s missed waking up at ungodly hours of the morning but he really kind of has. He’s also ridiculously grateful when Thad pushes on rather than dwelling on his discomfort in the way that Wes would have, pushing him until he spilled all of his thoughts no matter how uncomfortable. 

Thad is deliberate and methodical where Wes is tenacious and David blunt. Blaine is under no delusion that he’s off the hook yet. His voice is calm and orderly over the combined hiss and whir of their machines and Blaine knows that he’s simply trying another angle when he says, “And how is Kurt?”

“Kurt is,” Blaine hesitates for a moment before deciding on, “Happy.”

Blaine can tell from the quiet, composed twist of his lips that Thad is reading something in his words that he hadn’t intended and he isn’t exactly sure what goes on in Thad’s head but he sounds genuine enough when he says, “Good for him.” 

He’s pretty sure that’s supposed to mean something else too, if the sidelong look he gets is any indication.

“We’re having a duets competition,” he says abruptly, like it might somehow redirect Thad’s focus because Blaine remembers now how Thad always seemed to notice too much, “New Directions is, I mean.”

The name still feels foreign on his tongue.

“You and Kurt will perform admirably,” Thad assures him immediately and it’s almost Pavlovian, the kind of support that has always been automatic and eager when even the barest mention of Blaine and performing comes up.

He doesn’t know why his cheeks are suddenly burning as he admits, “Actually, I’m going to be singing with Santana,” and at the curiously neutral raise of Thad’s eyebrow he adds, “The soloist from Sectionals. She sang ‘Valerie.’”

“I remember,” Thad replies.

Blaine suddenly feels like he needs to explain himself and he isn’t sure why, “She’s very good.”

“I was there too,” Thad reminds him pointedly, “Your voices will blend wonderfully.”

“We’ve been having trouble deciding on a song,” Blaine continues, because he sometimes feels uncomfortable now when his former-teammates heap praise on him (and Thad’s brand of praise often strays closer to worship) like somewhere Kurt is rolling his eyes so hard they risk escaping their sockets.

And this is definitely weird, because they’d always been friendly, very friendly during crew season when there were early morning and late afternoon training sessions to be had and a certain amount of brotherhood expected, but he’d never gone to Thad for advice (mostly because a part of him has always accepted that Thad is kind of ridiculous) and he’s pretty sure that’s what he’s doing now. 

Asking Thad. For advice.

He must be worse off than he thought.

“You’ll find something,” Thad assures him, though now he’s looking at him like Blaine asking for advice on a performance is an unexpected, worrying turn. He supposes that for Junior Warbler Blaine Anderson it probably would have been. He isn’t sure he entirely likes it himself.

They fall back into an uncomfortable silence, filled by only the synchronised pull push of their arms and legs, the soft distant clink of weights as someone else joins them in the quiet of the gym.

“The Warblers have a scheduled appearance at the Doris Lightman Retirement Center next Tuesday,” Thad declares, apropos of nothing, and Blaine feels a surge of fondness for him as the awkwardness melts away.

“I thought you were reconsidering the suitability of Rest Homes as venues for Warbler performances after old Mrs. Henderson tried to molest Nick last time,” Blaine begins before simply hiking an eyebrow and staring at the broad smile that’s creeping across Thad’s face.

“After much discussion and a unanimous vote we came to the decision that with a more appropriate choice of set list we can minimise the risk of unwanted attention to any Warbler’s person,” Thad replies, “In hindsight, ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ was a little risque for the target demographic.”

And Blaine can’t help it, he’s laughing and god he misses them, more than he’d even imagined he would. Thad looks particularly pleased with himself as Blaine gasps and has to release his grip on the handle for a moment to press a hand to his ribs, the machine stuttering to a pause. The realization of how much he’s missed the ridiculous conversations that spiral from interacting with Thad, how he’s missed Thad himself, is actually kind of humbling, kind of eye-opening.

It only takes moments to regain momentum, to sink back into the same steady rhythm.

“You know, I got halfway here this morning before I realized I’m not even on the team anymore,” Blaine admits in a rush and he can feel his lungs starting to burn as he forces out another laugh and adds, “That’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”

Thad glances over at him and Blaine can see the light sheen of sweat that’s starting to gather across his forehead as it furrows and he says in that serious, deliberate way of his, “You’re always welcome to train with us. Just in case.”

And Blaine knows that what he actually means by us is me, that the just in case is meant to be finished with a you decide to come back, but it still makes him smile through the question of, “So, who’s your new partner then?”

Thad’s face actually sours, his lips thinning out like they used to when Blaine suggested something outrageous in a Warbler’s meeting. “Riley.”

Blaine frowns. “Singles Riley?”

Thad’s answering scowl is the only answer he actually needs. “Ouch.”

Blaine’s pretty sure he hears the word cowboy being muttered beneath Thad’s breath before his hands slip off the handle and Thad’s machine hisses to a halt. He watches from the corner of his eye as Thad wipes sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm before he releases his grip from his own handle and lets the seat slide back to a pause.

Blaine tugs his sweatshirt over his head and dumps it on top of his bag and he can see the way Thad watches him and the precise moment that something hard flickers across his face. His fingers snag at the sleeve of Blaine’s t-shirt and Blaine’s breath stutters awkwardly in his throat as Thad asks, “What happened?”

The bruise is dark and starting to mottle into greens and yellows around the edges that spread out beyond his sleeve but Thad is tugging the material aside and frowning with displeasure at what he sees. “You showed someone, didn’t you? A teacher?”

Blaine glances back at the machine, “It’s fine, Thad. I went to the school nurse.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Thad replies firmly, but his hand drops back to his side and he just stares at Blaine before he says in one breathless rush, like he’s been holding it in for so long and it had finally managed to escape, “Please, come back.”

There’s this weird, shuddery feeling that fills his stomach as he plants his feet on the ground on either side of the machine and sighs, glancing sidelong at Thad’s hopeful expression as he says, “McKinley is something that I’ve got to do, you know?”

Thad stares at him silently, his fingers tapping slowly across his knees and he’s eyeing Blaine like he’s a particularly troubling Sudoku puzzle, like he just needs to find the right combination of numbers to figure him out, to solve the problem. His eyes dart to the worn Dalton insignia that’s fading off of the sleeve of his t-shirt and back to Blaine’s face before he says, “There’s always a place for you with the Warblers,” and fits his feet back into position.

They sink back into the same rhythm, push pull, push pull, and almost fifteen minutes pass before Blaine is able to bring himself to say a quiet, “Thank you,” that barely rises over the hiss of the machines.

Thad hears it anyway.

\--

Kurt is waiting for him on his front porch when he gets back, a coffee in either hand and looking immaculate already where Blaine is a flushed, sweaty mess with a beanie jammed over the wilderness of his hair and a ridiculous, broad smile in place that he doesn’t want to try to stifle.

“Morning,” he breathes as he bounds up the steps and his muscles are burning, aching in a good way, because he’d forgotten how the ridiculous hours and the rigorous training schedule and everything about crew season makes him so happy. Even the awkwardness of the past few days with Kurt can’t dampen his mood. 

“Where have you been?” Kurt asks as Blaine liberates a cup from his hand and beams at him in gratitude. 

“Long story,” Blaine replies brightly, taking a long sip of his, oh, lukewarm coffee and noticing, for the first time, the pinched set to Kurt’s face. “Crew Season training started today,” he elaborates, “I was halfway to Westerville before I remembered that I’m not actually on the team anymore. I went anyway, it was nice to catch up with the guys.”

Kurt’s silence, he thinks, is meant to unsettle him. 

It’s very effective.

“We didn’t have plans, did we?” Blaine asks, though he’s sure they didn’t unless it was the kind of plans where Kurt decided they had plans and forgot to tell him again.

“No,” Kurt says eventually, glancing awkwardly at Blaine’s front door as he clutches his coffee cup. “No, I just thought that maybe we could hang out today. I feel like I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

“Oh,” Blaine replies a little too eagerly, glancing down at his watch with surprise. “Yeah, sure. I just need to shower. Come in, you can wait in my room if you want.”

He wrangles his coffee with his keys and pushes his way through the front door with Kurt on his heels. The realization that Kurt hasn’t really been here before, save for brief dashes out the door or hovering for a moment in the entryway while Blaine yells out a goodbye, makes him suddenly self-conscious because there’s a reason that Kurt hasn’t been here before.

The house is empty though, his parents long gone and there’s no reason that he should be worried about what Kurt’s thinking.

“I’m upstairs,” he explains over his shoulder and they trail up the steps, Kurt’s boots thunking loud and heavy against the carpet and Blaine probably should have offered to take his coat or something. He has no idea why being alone in his house with Kurt is suddenly grounds for being nervous.

He points out his parents bedroom in passing, the bathroom, the linen closet (what is he even doing?) and his lips are dry as he pushes open his door to announce, “This is my room.”

And it’s a mess because he’d been practically sleepwalking when he left that morning. His covers are tangled on his bed and clothing is strewn across the floor and the memory of Kurt’s room, immaculate and so tastefully decorated that it looked like a page from an Interior Design magazine, makes him suddenly, terribly self-conscious. 

He’s straightening the covers of his bed, kicking clothes into a pile and apologizing for the mess before he even notices that Kurt isn’t paying any attention, too busy studying the mass of polaroids lining the wall above his bed with curious eyes. It’s a rippling collage made up of smiling faces and Dalton navy and red and the way Kurt studies it is unsettling, like it maybe upsets him.

And that’s really when it hits him, that Kurt is in his room. That they’re alone. 

“I’m just going to go have that shower,” he says.

And then he bolts.

\--

Kurt is perched on the edge of his bed with a photo-frame in hand when he shuffles back into his room, a towel wrapped firmly around his hips and feeling unforgivably stupid for not remembering clothes when he’d made his break for the bathroom. 

His hair keeps dripping into his eyes and he feels ridiculously self-conscious as he tries to make it to his chest of drawers without attracting Kurt’s attention. Naturally, nothing goes to plan.

Kurt looks up, his eyes going wide and Blaine freezes, for just a second and he’s pretty sure he’s wearing the world’s most fixed smile as he says, “I forgot my clothes,” and immediately wants to hit himself.

Kurt’s reply of, “Don’t mind me,” sounds a little breathless but Blaine doesn’t chance looking at him, instead he digs into his drawers and tries to ignore the feeling of Kurt’s eyes on him.

This is ridiculous.

“I can help, if you want,” Kurt offers before stumbling all over himself to qualify, “- Pick your outfit, I mean. It’ll be fun.”

Kurt’s suddenly standing beside him, the soft wool of his coat brushing the bare skin of Blaine’s arm as he reaches past him to sort through the contents of his drawer. Blaine withdraws a step, his fingers curling around his arms as Kurt sorts and hmm’s to himself, brushes fingers thoughtfully over different fabrics and patterns and casts little flickers of looks back at him.

Blaine feels exposed and utterly flawed beneath those stares, his fingers pinching into the skin of his arms as he tries not to think that he’s standing practically naked in front of his boyfriend in his bedroom while his parents are out and that this should be exciting. Instead all he wants is for Kurt to hurry up and decide because now he’s considering changing back into his dirty gym clothes.

“Here,” Kurt says, turning back to him with an armful of clothing and pushing in close to hand them over.

He lifts his head to say, “Thanks,” and is promptly blindsided by Kurt’s lips, by the hands that curl around his arms in place of his own. It’s awkward and he may make a vaguely confused noise against Kurt’s mouth before he realizes what is happening because they haven’t exactly been doing this much, lately at least.

It doesn’t take long, though, to remember. They’d gotten awfully good at it before he’d transferred. 

Kurt’s walking him backwards and Blaine’s still awkwardly clutching his clothing to his chest and he has no idea where this has come from because even talking has seemed like a struggle recently and he hadn’t thought that was even possible with him and Kurt. Even after the Rachel Incident they’d been talking again within the week. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t missed this.

He gasps, a little, when Kurt’s hand strays too high on his arm and his fingers press into tender flesh and Kurt springs back, a little bit pink and his eyes darting towards Blaine’s face in confusion. 

“It’s fine,” Blaine tries to say but Kurt’s already looking, tugging on his arm to get a better angle before there are light fingers trailing over the ugly blot on his skin, unconsciously mirroring Thad’s earlier motions and Blaine feels suddenly, extremely uncomfortable. 

“This is from Thursday?” Kurt asks, like he hasn’t noticed the way that Blaine steps away from him.

Blaine efficiently sidesteps the question, murmuring, “It’s not a big deal,” as he dumps the bundle of clothes onto his bed and tugs the shirt over his head. 

It’s easier when he can’t see the carefully composed expression on Kurt’s face (it makes it that much simpler to ignore the voice in his head that makes wounded comparisons to Thad’s earlier open concern, to Puck’s firm practicality) but there’s something there that he can’t ignore. The sharpness in Kurt’s eyes that he can feel, a blunt edge pressing against his back that’s a little too knowing. 

He leaves the room with a muttered excuse of getting dressed when really, he’s just trying to figure out when being with Kurt had gotten so hard.

\--

It’s only two steps inside Kurt’s front door, Kurt’s familiar presence just a step behind, before he hears the high pitch of feminine laughter and he kind of just stops in his tracks. Kurt braces a hand against his shoulder to stop from smacking into his back and he can feel the quizzical stare trained on the back of his head.

“Blaine?”

He shrugs it off along with his jacket and glances back over his shoulder to smile as he says, “I just realized I left my keys at home.” 

He did, it’s not like he needs them.

Kurt swats at the back of his head and laughs as he passes him by, fingers swinging down to catch Blaine’s wrist as he says, “I think you’d forget your head sometimes if it wasn’t screwed on,” and tugs him down the hall.

The lounge is littered with the vestiges of a patented Girls Night, rolled up sleeping bags and overnight bags piled into a corner, quilts folded and piled on the armrest of the couch, empty bags of popcorn (salted not buttered, he notes with fond amusement) stuffed into an empty ice cream carton next to a towering stack of DVDs. Piled on the couch Mercedes is braiding cornrows into Tina’s hair while Rachel mouths along, eyes bright and glossy, as a little girl slays a Mariah Carey Christmas song onscreen. He can practically see the elaborate staging taking place in Rachel’s head in order to exact a similar scenario. She’d sound fantastic.

“We were starting to think you’d ditched us for loverboy,” Mercedes says and she’s beaming up at Kurt, not even stopping the practiced motions of her fingers through Tina’s hair as she looks up at them.

“Blame Blaine,” Kurt insists, tugging him towards a chair and casting an amused look in his direction as Rachel parts eyes with the screen to peer over at them, “He’s the one who apparently goes to the gym on a Saturday before the sun’s even up.”

Varying expressions of dismay mixed with a distinct boy, you’re crazy from Mercedes turn his way and he rolls his eyes as he says, “Crew training, Kurt, I’m used to it. I like it.”

“I didn’t know McKinley had a Crew Team,” Tina says, wincing visibly when Mercedes tugs a little too hard to get her to stop moving. 

“We don’t,” Kurt replies flatly and glances sideways at him, “He drove to Westerville to practice with his old team.”

He hears the weird tittering noise from Mercedes and knows that it probably means something (because Kurt tells her everything these days) but instead he’s struck by the way that Rachel looks at him, shrewdly, like she suddenly understands something. 

“I liked Crew,” he replies because they’re all looking at him, even though on screen the Prime Minister has just been caught kissing Natalie on stage and he probably sounds ridiculous so he slumps into the armchair Kurt’s been pushing him towards. 

“Four sweaty, smelly boys squished into a tiny boat,” Kurt says with a wrinkle of his nose, “I don’t see the appeal.”

He rolls his head back to look up at Kurt who’s quirked mouth is stuck somewhere too sharp to be strictly teasing and counters lightly, “Four, very fit boys in aerodynamic uniforms squished into a tiny boat. Besides, I raced doubles.”

He opts for a grin and stares up at him until Kurt’s smile softens into something a little more genuine before he adds, “And for the record, you are as much to blame as I am, you’re the one who kept trying to get me naked,” and turns his head back to the screen as Kurt gasps and the girls let out squeals and laughter.

“You’re a filthy liar Blaine Anderson,” Kurt insists and Tina titters something that sounds like, I bet he’s a filthy something under her breath. 

“You kept stealing my shirt,” Blaine retorts, casting his best doe-eyed stare up at Kurt who is staring at him in disbelief, and Blaine has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing.

Kurt is red as he gasps, “You were already naked, and that, that was for fashion, Blaine. Fashion. You said I could pick your outfit-”

He seems to finally take note of Blaine’s failed attempts at stifling his laughter and whacks him in the arm with a, “Oh my god, you’re such a jerk,” for good measure.

“A fashionable jerk,” Blaine qualifies, unleashing his best smile up at Kurt.

Kurt rolls his eyes before relenting, “Naturally. Look at who your stylist is.”

“Naturally,” Blaine echoes seriously and it almost feels natural, easy like he remembers it being.

They sit and they watch the end of Love, Actually and when it finishes Mercedes calls dibs and sticks Dreamgirls in the player. 

Somewhere halfway through the movie Mercedes finishes Tina’s hair with a flourish and after all the appropriate modelling, he’s promptly asked, “How do I look?”

His response of, “Terrifying,” (admittedly, not his best moment) is met with mixed results, including an actual fake cough to cover laughter from Kurt, so he qualifies with a, “I assumed that’s what you were going for. Asian Gangster?”

He pulls out his best gang signs and thug face and suddenly they’re too busy laughing at him to be offended, which, he assumes is a good thing. Girls are complicated.

Later they’ll fistbump and Tina will decide it’s their favourite new joke and really, it’s kind of the first time he hasn’t felt completely out of place with Kurt’s circle of friends.

By the time Tina shoves Kill Bill into the player (cementing Blaine’s newfound appreciation for her) Blaine almost feels relaxed, less like he’s been ambushed once again by Kurt wanting to hang out only to find he actually means with my friends.

It’s kind of nice.

At least, it is until Blaine heads to the kitchen to fetch drinks and finds himself being cornered against the fridge with Mercedes hissing, “Boy, what do you think you’re doing?”

He stares, kind of bewildered at her very serious expression, glances back towards the fridge and opens his mouth to point out what should be obvious, considering they’d basically just ordered him to get them drinks and she rolls her eyes. 

“Don’t you play dumb with me, Blaine Anderson,” she adds with a wave of her finger in his face, “You think we haven’t noticed how, suddenly, every time Kurt makes plans with you you’re doing something with your friends from Dalton, or hanging out with the Warblers or driving to Dalton to practice for a team that you aren’t even on any more.”

Blaine feels like he’s being accused of something but he can’t figure out exactly what, so he tries for an (admittedly) weak smile as he says, “I’m not sure I’m following here, Mercedes.”

“If you’re thinking about going back to Dalton don’t you think you should be talking to Kurt about it,” she replies, jabbing him in the chest for emphasis.

“I’m not thinking about going back to Dalton,” he objects, because yeah he’s definitely being accused of something here.

Mercedes gives him a hard look like she clearly doesn’t believe him and it’s kind of starting to annoy him. 

He turns back to the fridge and begins stowing bottles of water into his arms, his lips pressed together to hold back the irritation that’s starting to seep into him because Mercedes is just looking out for Kurt, like usual. She doesn’t mean anything by it.

“All I know is that I saw more of you together when you were still at Dalton,” Mercedes says and Blaine bites down on the retort that’s forming on his tongue and instead extends a bottle to her before heading back for the sitting room.

Mercedes tails him back out to the group as he hands out the bottles and slumps back into his seat and Kurt is looking at him now, which probably means he isn’t doing quite as good a job at covering up what he’s thinking after all. 

“What’s the matter?” Kurt asks bluntly.

“Nothing,” Blaine assures him, gluing his eyes to the screen for the sake of a good distraction and trying to ignore the way that Mercedes frowns at him from the couch.

This is getting ridiculous.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he takes the much needed distraction gladly, digging it with some difficulty from the pocket of the ridiculously tight jeans that Kurt had wrangled from his drawer and feeling a part of him relax, a little, at the message displayed across his screen: You showed up for Crew training but you won’t sit in on a Warblers practice? What is this heresy? For shame, Anderson.

“Who is it?” Kurt’s voice pitches over the clash of steel on-screen.

“Nick,” he replies and he only realizes he’s smiling when Kurt’s face falls in response.

Kurt sounds weird, almost mocking, when he says, “I didn’t realize you and Nick were so close.”

For the second time in the past ten minutes Blaine feels like he’s being accused of something. 

It’s probably why it comes out a little sharp when he says, “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Kurt.”

“I didn’t know you guys hung out, is all,” Kurt replies, “You’d think I’d know who my boyfriend’s spending so much time with.”

“He was just making fun of me for showing up for Crew training,” Blaine replies stiffly, because he really has no idea where Kurt’s going with this.

“I didn’t think Nick was the Crew type,” Kurt says and the pinched look and weird undertone from that morning are back with a vengeance. 

“He isn’t,” Blaine replies sharply, “Thad probably told him.”

“Thad?” Kurt repeats flatly and the look on his face is really all it takes for the annoyance that’s been simmering away inside of him to push it’s way up.

“What’s wrong with Thad?” he asks, not entirely sure he wants the answer, especially now that the girls aren’t even pretending to pay attention to the movie anymore, instead their heads are swivelling back and forth between him and Kurt like they’re in the stands at Wimbledon.

“Oh, nothings wrong with Thad,” Kurt replies and he’s so utterly composed, his voice frosty as he snaps, “Nice to know that my boyfriend spent all morning getting sweaty with the guy who has a crush on him that’s literally the size of a planet.”

“Thad doesn’t-”

Kurt cuts him off with a loud huff.

“How oblivious can you possibly be, Blaine? I’m pretty sure there are single-celled amoebas that have noticed Thad’s painfully obvious crush on you,” Kurt smooths a finger over the knee of his jeans and a sharp annoyed glance cuts through him.

Blaine stares, mouth open, at Kurt for a moment before he says with some surprise, “You’re jealous.”

“No, Blaine,” Kurt replies witheringly, “I’m completely fine with the fact that my boyfriend spends all his time texting other boys and blowing off our coffee dates and going to the gym at ridiculous hours of the morning to meet other boys who probably have creepy shrines dedicated to him in their closets. I’m so okay with that.”

Blaine forces himself to just breathe, to push back the resentment that’s starting to stir and the voice that’s saying not fair in favour of the part of him that knows rising to Kurt’s bait isn’t going to resolve anything. He needs to be calm and talk about this rationally.

It’s why he does his best to keep his voice even as he says, “I wasn’t meeting Thad, Kurt, I was training with the team. John was there as well.” 

The sour look on Kurt’s face fails to lift and he wants to ask, What’s wrong with John? accept he’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually want to know the answer to that question and well, Kurt’s looks are starting to get beneath his skin and he doesn’t want to be angry, but he’s definitely getting there.

“For the record,” he adds stiffly, “Thad asked after you today.”

“Wanted to know if I’d fallen down any stairwells recently?” Kurt retorts and Blaine just stares because he has no idea what’s gotten into Kurt today, why he’s suddenly decided that anything Warbler is the enemy, but he’d really kind of like it to stop.

So he asks, “Why are you so angry?” and tries to keep a lid on the frustration that’s starting to burn through his own resolve.

“I’m not angry,” Kurt replies immediately, “I’m tired of my boyfriend not acting like one.”

“I’m sorry that me hanging out with my friends is suddenly a problem for you,” he breathes back and immediately regrets it because it’s hitting too close to the other things he’s trying not to say, that he certainly doesn’t want to broach in present company.

“Right,” Kurt mutters and he sounds so damn sarcastic that Blaine doesn’t know what to think, “Because the Blaine Anderson Fan Club and you have always been such good friends.”

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” Blaine manages to get out around the sudden dizzying pound of his heart, because he’s acutely aware of the eyes staring at him and the fact that they’re having their first real fight as boyfriends in front of Kurt’s friends.

“No,” Kurt replies sharply and Kurt’s always been a private person, has always kept his problems close to his chest, sometimes dangerously so, so why has he suddenly decided to make such a performance of this?

Unless.

Unless this was less like an argument come from nowhere and more like an intervention. Unless that whole, uncomfortable conversation (for lack of a better word) with Mercedes in the Kitchen hadn’t been a coincidence but rather, the opening act.

Blaine stares, bewildered at the floor and takes a slow breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth and just tries to wrap his head around this. He inspects the unopened bottle of water sitting by his feet and wonders how Kurt can be so utterly blind, how he can notice the solution but completely miss the actual problem.

Blaine tries to remember what Mercedes had said in the kitchen but all his thoughts seem to slide into each other, a tangled mess that he can’t make sense of, so he takes in another breath and looks up at Kurt slowly. He has no idea what to say.

His phone buzzes in his hand again and there’s a weird tense silence where he’s pretty sure that not a single person in the room dares to so much as breathe before Kurt rolls his eyes and mutters, “Get it already. It’s probably one of your other boyfriends.”

The annoyance that’s been rising in him is suddenly gone, replaced immediately by the sting of plain hurt. He stares, unable to gather his thoughts and he can feel the girls staring back at him but Kurt’s accusations are crawling around underneath his skin now and he can’t push them away long enough to think.

“I can’t believe you,” he manages to say and he doesn’t really understand what he’s doing until he’s on his feet and headed for the door, a million things racing through his mind that he can’t even contemplate saying because he’s too angry. 

“Where are you going?” Kurt asks his back and he doesn’t want to think it but then Kurt’s saying it anyway and it hurts, “Running away like usual?”

The door slams shut behind him, not nearly loud enough to silence the response that fills his head. 

It’s what I’m best at.

\--

He forces himself to walk, no, to stride out of Kurt’s house, his head high because he’s determined and he’s certain that this isn’t his fault. He isn’t waiting for Kurt to stop him or thinking that he’s being stupid, that he should turn around and go back and try to talk this out, fix things, because this isn’t his fault.

He’s at the porch and he isn’t hesitating at all, so caught up in the chanting in his head that tells him to turn back, turn back now that he doesn’t even see Puck until they’re revolving awkwardly around each other, a broad hand balancing against his hip as Puck says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, where’s the fire?”

He stares and breathes and stares and he must say something like, Oh, that’s just the smouldering wreckage of my relationship, mind the smoke-inhalation because Puck is staring back at him like he’s gone insane. Maybe he has. Maybe that’s why he’s flouncing from the Hummel-Hudson home in a performance worthy of Rachel Berry.

If he listens hard enough he can hear the muffled commotion within the house and he wonders what’s happening in there. What they’re saying about him. It makes him want to turn around and walk straight back inside, take back everything he said and pretend it’s all fine.

“-Anderson?” Puck’s hand is on his shoulder and he jerks, his head snapping up at the realization that Puck had asked him something.

“Where’s your car?”

Blaine frowns, opens his mouth to answer but oh, Kurt had driven him, hadn’t he? That had been stupid.

“At home,” he mumbles and shakes his head, scrubs a hand through his hair, and well, his house isn’t really that far. The walk will probably do him good.

“Where are you going?”

He hadn’t even realized he’d started walking but Puck’s following him. He doesn’t have his jacket.

“Home,” Blaine murmurs.

“- You sure you’re okay?” Puck’s saying and Blaine turns his head to look at him, where he’s fallen into step beside him.

He thinks he might want to laugh.

“No,” he says instead, because the idea of trying to place a mask like okay over the jumbled mess of his feelings is laughable right now.

“C’mon,” Puck’s saying as he closes a hand around Blaine’s arm and tugs him off course, “If I let you walk you’ll probably get hit by a truck and then Hummel will lose it and go all Carrie on the entire school. I’ll drive you.”

He tries to protest that he can walk, that he’s not going to get hit by a truck, but Puck seems to be ignoring him now as he all but manhandles him into the passenger seat of an old pale-blue sedan and closes the door firmly behind him. It’s only moments before Puck’s sitting in the drivers seat and Blaine is staring blankly at the little pine tree air freshener swinging from the rear-view when Puck bluntly says, “It’s my Mom’s car.”

“Right,” Blaine murmurs, shifting his gaze to the cassette player as Puck starts the engine and the speakers squeal out, reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I’d hide and pray for the thunder- and Puck reaches for the volume and jerks it down.

Blaine thinks he catches movement in Kurt’s house at the curtains that overlook the street but he’s forced to turn away as Puck asks him where he lives and pulls away from the curb. He manages to rattle off some directions before they devolve into a strangely comfortable silence with only the crackling cassette of Appetite for Destruction wailing between them. Blaine’s fingers dig into his seatbelt as he listens to Puck hum along to a particular line or drum his fingers against the steering wheel.

He hates the uncomfortable squirm of his stomach, the slow oppressive squeeze of his lungs. He hates fighting with Kurt. That the easy, giddy friendship they’ve had since they met, that all they’ve been through, could be twisted into making him feel like this. 

Puck breaks through his thoughts with a gruff, “Turn right up here?” as he slows for a traffic light and Blaine hmm’s an agreement, forcing himself from his thoughts before he does something stupid like grabbing his phone and trying to text Kurt.

“So was there any hair-pulling involved?” Puck asks and Blaine whips his head around to stare.

“In this fight,” Puck elaborates and Blaine can’t tell if he’s being a jerk on purpose, to try and coax Blaine out of his funk, or if he’s actually serious. “Because, for the record, I’d totally put my money on you. Hummel’s scary and all and you’re small, but I bet you’re scrappy. It’s the little ones you’ve gotta watch out for, you know.”

Blaine stares wordlessly at him, not sure if he’s supposed to be smiling or not but feeling like he possibly might be when Puck adds, “I learned that in Fight Club, man. Never call out the little guys.”

“I thought the first rule of Fight Club was that you don’t talk about Fight Club,” Blaine is surprised to find himself replying.

Puck just smirks at him and raises his eyebrows in a way that seems to ask wouldn’t you like to know? and Blaine realizes he’s been played. The ancient speakers crackle in protest against one of Axl Rose’s wailing notes and Blaine’s fingers shift to his knees, tapping nervously as he feels his phone buzz against his hip, hears the muffled reverb of blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken-, and digs for it immediately.

He can feel Puck looking at him from the corner of his eye as his fingers curl around the plastic casing and he stares at the phone as it continues to buzz up at him, you were only waiting for this moment to -

He presses a thumb to the power button and slips it back into his pocket determinedly.

Puck is watching him still, little covert looks split between him and the road, but he doesn’t say anything as Blaine mindlessly directs him down street after street until he’s pointing out which house is his and Puck let’s out a low whistle. Puck follows him to the front door and then inside after he’s fished the spare key out of a hanging pot plant and Blaine doesn’t even think to question it as he stumbles towards the kitchen and slumps onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

Puck leans a hip against the counter and muses, “I could go for pizza.”

Which is how they end up with an extra large pizza with everything sitting between them on the couch in the sitting room, digging through shelves of DVDs until Fight Club is playing on the flat screen while Blaine splits his attention between the dark screen of his phone and Puck’s insistent yelling of, “What’s in the box?” every time Brad Pitt is onscreen (which is, well, a lot and makes him wonder why they aren’t just watching Se7en instead.)

It’s all surprisingly easy.

\--

He turns his phone on Sunday morning.

The only text he’s received from Kurt reads, You forgot your jacket.

\--

He doesn’t know what he expects on Monday morning. He slinks through a side door, visions of Mercedes bearing down on him with the wrath of the Sassy Best Friend and Finn looming and scowling at him from a corner because he and Kurt are brothers now, you know running rampant in his imagination. It’s surprisingly quiet.

He thinks this might be worse.

Blaine’s closing his locker, hitching his satchel higher onto his shoulder when the first wave hits. Standing behind his locker door is Rachel Berry, frowning at him.

“I just want you to know,” she’s saying firmly with that earnest, practiced stare, “That I know what you’re doing.”

He wants to say, Not now, Rachel, but he can’t bring himself to the level of dismissive cruelty that seems to come easily to rest of the school when it concerns her. For whatever reason, even after sharing a choir room with her for three weeks, he still likes her.

Instead he asks, “What’s that?” and begins the trek to his morning History class.

“You’re trying to push him away so that it doesn’t hurt as bad when you inevitably transfer back to Dalton,” she replies in a breathless rush as she hurries along to keep up with him. “You’re awfully transparent, Blaine.”

“Actually,” Blaine corrects her quietly as he veers down another corridor upon spotting a wall of Letterman jackets up ahead, “I hadn’t intended on transferring back.”

Rachel huffs, “You’re miserable here. Everyone’s noticed, you know. Kurt talks about it all the time. He’s sorry, you don’t have to pretend-”

The end of her sentence is neatly cut off by the click of the History classroom’s door.

Apparently he can bring himself to that.

\--

He drums his fingers against the plastic casing of his phone, sitting with his back to the shelves in the History section. It’s overcast today and the library is busier than usual but the History section remains deserted. It’s a good place to hide.

He’d narrowly avoided Mercedes earlier, hasn’t even locked eyes on Kurt yet, but he’s feeling tired already. Glee practice is looming over his afternoon like the dark clouds outside and he’s kind of considering cutting out of his afternoon classes and just skipping it altogether.

McKinley is doing wonders for his academic standards.

His head thunks back against the spines of the dusty, old books and he sighs, his phone hanging loosely between his fingertips as he stares up at the high windows. He kind of really hates McKinley.

“Moping, are we?” Santana scoffs as she kicks at his feet, clambers over his legs to sink down against the bookshelf against his side. “Like nobody saw it coming.”

He glances sidelong at her and wonders if that was supposed to be comforting.

“Besides, if the bitch face Hummel’s wearing today is any indication, he’s even pissier than you are.”

That, he’s sure, has to be Santana’s version of comforting. He’s just wondering why she’s bothering.

“So, duets,” she continues and, huh, that would be why. “Tell me you haven’t been moping all weekend, Anderson, Breadstix and I have business with each other.”

“I don’t,” he starts to say before letting out a sigh and thunking his head back against the books again. Hard.

“Oh god,” she breathes as she rolls her eyes towards the ceiling, “Remember what I said about the Toy Poodle thing? That look is not helping.”

Blaine wordlessly thunks his head against the books again and her face scrunches up with dismay.

“Do I look like I want to hear about your feelings?”

He glances over at her again and watches her physically cringe. It would be sort of funny if he wasn’t feeling so sorry for himself.

She sighs and levels a disgusted look at him, like she can’t believe she’s about to do this, before saying, “So I take it Team Hummel’s already taken it’s turn in making you feel bad about yourself for existing?”

He thinks about, everyone’s noticed, you know and feels a scowl surfacing. “Apparently my misery at McKinley is a hot topic for everyone that isn’t me.”

Santana snorts.

He’s fairly sure that wasn’t funny.

“You’re really bad at this,” he informs her coolly.

“I never claimed to be good at it,” she fires back, “Besides, the woe is me thing is hilarious when you look like you just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue.”

“I don’t look like I stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue,” he replies stiffly.

“It’s the hair,” she contends, “And your face. Mostly your face.”

“My face does not look like a Ralph Lauren catalogue,” he replies indignantly before realizing what he just said and seeing the smirk on her face. “You’re really not a very nice person.”

“I never claimed to be,” Santana retorts. “Now, are we done here? Because we need to decide on a song before we lose our head start.”

Blaine’s phone buzzes in his hand, the screen lighting up and he’s able to tug it out of Santana’s reach before she can steal it from him. It reads From: Jeff.

He has to block Santana with his shoulder to actually tap into the message and the cryptic, Check your email makes him smile, just a bit. Santana scoffs something about him wasting time against his ear as she tries to grab his phone but instead he obediently taps away until he gets to his email account.

At the top of his inbox is a message from Thad, of all people, using his Dalton account and he stares in confusion at the header which reads, Official Warblers Minutes for the Meeting Dated 7/8/2012.

He stares blankly at the screen for a moment before tapping into it and starting to laugh as he reads the opening message.

Blaine,  
Having given thought to the matter you addressed this past Saturday morning I decided to submit your predicament to the Warblers for their input. Attached you will find a list of songs nominated as suitable to your needs, in order of preference, as voted by the Warbler collective. Enclosed in the minutes you will find arguments made for and against each song. I hope you will find this missive helpful, even if our assistance is unwarranted.  
Yours sincerely,  
Warbler Head Councilman of the class of 2012,  
Thad.  
P.S. Good luck for your performance.

He’s still staring bewildered at the screen, trying to smother the vaguely hysterical laughter that’s escaping his mouth when Santana reaches past him and snatches it from his hands. She squints at the screen, lets out a disbelieving scoff and breathes what he thinks sounds like, “Too gay to function.”

Somehow, he’s not even dreading Glee practice anymore.

\--

Okay, so maybe that isn’t entirely accurate.

By the time Glee Practice actually rolls around he’s had an afternoon’s worth of horrifically dull classes to work himself into a mess of nerves, the last of which is spent with Tina and Mike sending him strange, unreadable looks from their lab table two rows back. He knows they’re doing it because the girl he’s sitting next to has her compact out for half of the class and he can see them in it’s reflection every time she tilts it to a certain angle.

Not that he’s paranoid or anything.

He hurries from the class as soon as the bell rings and pretends he doesn’t hear what might have been a curious, Wait up, because it’s imperative that he gets to his locker. He has books to put away. A locker to straighten. Many important things to do that have nothing to do with not going to the choir room.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Puck informs him as he falls into step with him, “But you’re going the wrong way.”

Blaine’s starting to wonder how he does that.

And he doesn’t really know how to say that he’s a giant coward who has spent the past two hours talking himself out of going to practice, so he mumbles, “My lockers this way.”

Puck looks at him strangely before grabbing his arm and promptly turning him in the opposite direction, “Now I know you aren’t planning on skipping out on Glee, Anderson.”

There are probably ways of getting out of this without looking like a complete loser but Blaine can’t think of any so he pastes what he hopes will pass for an acceptable level of, I’m completely fine, in smile-form across his face and allows Puck to manhandle him down the corridor.

“The way I figure it is that us Glee Studs have got to stick together,” Puck’s saying as the door to the choir room looms in the distance and up until this moment Blaine hadn’t been aware that there was such a thing as a friendly headlock.

Puck’s saying something downright offensive about chicks and drama that Blaine’s doing his best to tune out because Puck’s been surprisingly cool to him and despite the fact that Blaine’s face is mushed uncomfortably close to Puck’s armpit, (which, surprisingly, is less uncomfortable than the fact that Puck has apparently decided he needs to qualify why he’s hanging out with him. Or that he was just referred to as a stud in anything less than an entirely ironic way.) Blaine’s found he kind of likes hanging out with him.

Puck doesn’t release him until they’re about three feet from the choir room and Mr. Schuester is in their eyeline, striding down the corridor looking so excited that the decision is really not even in Blaine’s hands anymore. He steels his resolve and opens the door, ignoring the broad encouraging thump of Puck’s fist knocking into his shoulder and striding into the room.

He can hear Puck dawdling along behind him and he does his best not to look at certain seats, but he does catch the slow smirk spreading across Santana’s lips as she looks pointedly from Blaine to a point over his shoulder and back again. He kind of hates her for it.

It’s too quiet, he thinks, as he pointedly keeps his eyes fixed, well, away from that part of the room and then it’s too loud, a sudden wave of conversations tripping over one another, like they’re trying to overcompensate for the lull in conversation. He hears Kurt sniping at someone and drops his eyes to his feet.

“Hey, Earth to Boy George,” Santana’s abruptly saying as she snaps a finger beside his ear, the other hand curling around a handful of his sleeve and tugging him towards her, “We have songs to look over, get your butt over here.”

He can feel the eyes that follow him as he sinks into the empty seat at Santana’s side and forces his game face on as he asks, “Boy George? Really?”

She shrugs. “Seemed appropriate.”

“Terrifying, more like,” he murmurs as he drops his satchel to the ground and tries to catch a glimpse of Kurt from the corner of his eye without looking like he’s trying to look at Kurt but is distracted by the hand that’s suddenly digging into his pockets.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, because Mr. Schuester’s sweeping through the doorway looking terribly pleased with himself and Santana’s abandoned the pocket closest to her to lean across his lap and splay her palm across the other.

“What does it look like I’m doing,” she scoffs back, huffing a strand of hair out of her mouth.

At his uncomprehending stare she rolls her eyes and adds, “I’m looking for your phone, loser. Since you’re busy staring soulfully at the back of Hummel’s head, I want to look at the list.”

“I’m not staring soulfully at anything,” Blaine insists as he digs into his satchel and slaps his phone into her open palm with a pointed scowl, “And you could have just asked rather than molesting me.”

“Oh honey,” she retorts, eyes flicking up and down the length of him with amusement, “If I was trying to molest you, you’d know about it.”

“Guys!”

The raised voice snaps Blaine’s attention back to the front of the classroom. Mr. Schuester is staring at them with his mildly disappointed face, which, Blaine figures, is mostly directed at him because Santana appears supremely unconcerned. She leans back in her seat and directs her attention to the screen of Blaine’s phone and he should probably be worried that she (apparently) knows the password to his email account.

“As I was saying,” Mr. Schuester picks up again, his voice pitched pointedly louder, “It’s time for our yearly Duets competition. Everyone partner up and guys, you better make it good. We had some spectacular performances last year so you’re going to have to pull out all the stops to earn that dinner at Breadstix.”

Blaine hears the mutter of, “Pry it from my cold, dead hands, more like,” from Santana’s direction and can’t help the small smile that tugs at his lips.

He doesn’t even notice Rachel hovering over him until she’s already speaking.

“I know that given current circumstances, combining our talents may seem like a breach of friendship etiquette between myself and Kurt,” she gives him a long, hard look as if to assure him that this is not the case before continuing, “However, I am of the firm belief that nothing should stand in the way of a good performance and given our startling musical chemistry together and your obvious reticence in finding a role as a new member of our group, I propose that we-”

She’s cut off, mid-sentence, by the decidedly blunt, “Back off, Man-Hands. The Warbler’s mine.”

Which, well, not the words he would have chosen.

Rachel kind of gapes wordlessly for a second and Blaine feels an immediate wave of guilt at the hurt that she isn’t remotely successful at hiding, so he says, “I’m sorry Rachel, I already promised Santana.”

“Fine,” Rachel replies stiffly, “But just so you know, the likelihood of you winning without me is almost non-existent.”

And he knows that this is Rachel, this is what she does, so he’s surprised when Santana drops his phone into his lap and whirls around to say, “Oh, you did not just imply what I think you did, Ru Paul. I will end you.”

Before he knows what he’s doing he’s surging to his feet, his phone clattering across the floor, and he’s caught between Rachel whose shrieking in terror and Santana whose lunging at him (or really, he supposes, around him at her).

Santana really is terrifying when she’s snarling let me at her and Blaine isn’t sure what he’s doing in the middle of what he’s trying not to call a catfight in his head but somehow he manages to keep them apart until Puck and Sam join forces to haul her away. Puck grins at him over Santana’s shoulder as he says, “Told you man, it’s always the small ones.”

Practice is cut short by Mr. Schuester’s pointed looks of disappointment and instructions to cool off that nobody seems to pay heed to and Santana still looks fit to murder someone as he slings his satchel onto his shoulder. She’s dragging him towards the door by the wrist when suddenly there’s a hand catching at his shoulder and he turns his head and there’s Kurt.

All the drama that had been such a welcome distraction during practice suddenly seems like it happened a million years ago in some distant corner of the universe now that he’s faced with the stiff jaw and cold composure of Kurt Hummel saying, “Blaine, can we talk.”

Santana throws her hands up and snaps, “Text me when you’re done,” before stalking off.

The choir room clears entirely too quickly under Kurt’s pointed glares and Blaine watches the stragglers disappear, the door as it shuts behind them with a resounding click, before he can bring himself to look at Kurt again.

“I haven’t seen you today,” Kurt says eventually.

“Yeah,” Blaine replies and well, that was eloquent, but it had sort of been the point, the not seeing him part at least.

“I don’t like it when we fight,” Kurt adds into the awkward silence that follows Blaine’s complete lack of anything to say for fear of saying the wrong thing.

“Neither do I,” Blaine replies immediately and there’s something like relief loosening the knot in his chest, his shoulders slumping down as he sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry I walked out.”

“I’m sorry I,” and a part of Blaine clenches as Kurt pauses, as if considering what he actually needs to be sorry for, before he says, “Said what I did.”

And Blaine knows that Kurt hates apologizing and that had been one of the many things that he’d found endearing about him in the first place, so really, he can’t expect Kurt to apologize properly. It should be enough that he’s apologizing at all.

Kurt looks at him from the corner of his eye, like he knows what Blaine’s thinking and extends his hand with a wry smile. Blaine stares blankly down at the phone cradled in Kurt’s fingers until Kurt nudges it against his fingertips. “You dropped it when you decided to become the meat in a Rachel and Santana sandwich, which while we’re on the subject, frankly, has me worried about your basic survival instincts.”

Blaine takes it, his lips twitching up into a smile as he slides it into his pocket. “Hey, I’ll have you know that Sue Sylvester herself informed me that us Shire-folk are a hardy people, I think I can handle a catfight or two.”

Kurt titters and knocks his shoulder awkwardly into Blaine’s, “Just promise me you won’t decide to get in the middle next time Santana has a go at Lauren, you’re too pretty to die like that.”

“Oh no,” Blaine replies and he’s actually grinning now, tucking a thumb beneath the strap of his satchel and gesturing his head towards the door questioningly, “It may not seem like it but even my stupidity has it’s limits, Kurt.”

“Glad to hear it,” Kurt says, smiling just a little as they both head for the door before pausing abruptly, his fingers snagging in Blaine’s sleeve as he asks, “So we’re okay, then?”

“Yeah,” Blaine responds immediately because he wants them to be and he’s pretty sure they can be. “Yeah, we’re good.”

Kurt actually beams at him and they both move towards the door at the same time, Blaine grinning and waving Kurt ahead with an elaborate sweep of his arms.

The hallway outside is mostly empty though Blaine can see Mercedes and Rachel hovering nearby, trying to look like they aren’t watching.

“I should go find Santana,” Blaine decides with a wry smile, “This duet is not going to sing itself.”

Kurt’s smile dims a little but he laughs and says, “Good luck with that,” before surging forward to press an impulsive kiss to the corner of Blaine’s mouth.

It tugs Blaine’s lips into a smile that’s a little brighter and he figures that it’ll do for now.

\--

“All’s well in Gayville then,” is what greets him from where she’s sprawled in the afternoon sun on the concrete steps in the courtyard.

He stops and quirks an eyebrow and she looks at him over the rims of her sunglasses, scoffs and says, “Please, you look like a fucking Springer Spaniel. Either you and Hummel had a nauseatingly sweet reunion or you stopped off for a quickie in the bathroom with Puckermann.”

She pauses, eyes him extra hard with a slow curl of lips and says, “Please let it be the second.”

“Would you stop with the Puck thing?” Blaine asks as he drops down next to her, “For one, it’s grossly untrue, for two, I have a boyfriend and for three, I’m pretty sure Puck is the most heterosexual boy in this entire school.”

Santana actually laughs at that, like it’s the funniest thing she’s heard in forever, which, well: “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard since ‘My Headband.’”

For someone who just threatened to strangle Rachel Berry’s gigantic bobble-head right off her tiny little body, she’s in an awfully good mood.

Blaine rolls his eyes and sheds his cardigan, digs through his satchel for his own sunglasses and flops back against the steps. Rather than dignify her smirk with any kind of answer he stares up at the clear skies and wonders at how quickly the clouds had burned away before he asks, “How do you feel about Rihanna?”

He tries not to look at her face but he can see the way her smirk broadens for just a moment, like she considered his abrupt change of subject a victory, before she sneers, “Ugh, you aren’t an Eminem fan are you? Glee club has enough delusional white boys who think they can rap already, thanks.”

Blaine lets out a startled laugh and wriggles his toes in his boots, considering if it would be weird to take them off, before digging into his pocket for his phone. It’s still open to his email and he wonders, briefly, if Kurt had looked, before he shrugs and scrolls down the list of songs before tipping the screen towards her wordlessly.

“I think you have a boner for Whiny McTightpants” she tells him bluntly.

Blaine does his best to shrug off the warmth in his cheeks, his lips quirking just a bit as he cajoles, “It got a four star recommendation and a smiley face from the Warblers.”

“Sickeningly cute,” she replies. “Let’s hear it then.”

He goes to reach for his satchel and she swats blindly at his hand with a scoff. “I know the song, Marty McFly, I meant you sing.”

Blaine pushes up into a sitting position and glances over the courtyard. There’s a handful of dark and brooding kids with sketchpads sitting at one of the picnic tables and what he thinks is roughly half the AV club doing something suspicious to the outdoor speakers.

Well, an audience was an audience.

Somehow, even without the fifteen-strong wall of sound rising behind him, the moment he opens his mouth to sing it feels just like it always has.

He hasn’t sung like this at McKinley. Just cutting loose and being ridiculous, joyful, and it’s a relief, a release of the pent up energy that’s had him restless and fidgety for what feels like weeks. It’s when he’s sitting in the choir room, feeling impossibly shut out of the world that surrounds him, that he misses throwing the orderly corridors of Dalton into brief, spirited bursts of chaos, the energy and response and everything that came with it.

His audition for New Directions had been sedate by Kurt’s suggestion, something honest, he’d advised, they’ve already seen the Blaine Show, show them something new.

He knows that if he could see them, Santana’s dark eyes would be laughing at him over the suggestive crimson twist of her lips as he sings, You say I’m not your type but I can make you sway, and reaches for her hand and it doesn’t matter that she’s laughing or there’s no band or Warblers behind him to keep rhythm because he knows this.

She cuts him off halfway through the second verse, after he’s already twirled her twice in complete disregard for the tone of the song and her sunglasses are sliding down her nose.

She actually smiles at him as she quirks an eyebrow and says, “We can work on it.”

\--

Their lunch table is a mess.

Tina is giggling into Mike’s shoulder as Rachel loudly announces her imminent victory (only five minutes ago she’d been lamenting Sam’s decision to spend their practices demonstrating his favourite impersonations of famous people). Mercedes’ frequent exclamations (which have thus far included variations on the themes of: oh hell to the no, you are delusional and there is no way you and that Bieber wannabe can beat the fabulosity of me and my boy Kurt.) teamed with Kurt’s well-honed snipes (mostly confined to whatever is currently masquerading as Rachel’s sweater) keep jerking Blaine’s eyes up from the screen of his phone.

Kurt nudges his side as Blaine taps back a reply to Santana’s, Tell Berry I can hear her obnoxious squawking from here, and he looks up, quirking an eyebrow as Kurt leans in to say against his ear, “You know Mr. Schue wouldn’t mind if you changed duet partners, right?”

Blaine presses send on his reply of, Tell her yourself, you’re two tables away, and smiles, just a little, when approximately twenty seconds later there’s a yell of, “I hope Evans’ ungodly mouth slips and you fall into it, Berry.”

It’s followed in quick succession by an exasperated, “Seriously, enough with the mouth jokes!”

Rachel’s head jerks around to glare down Santana and Blaine grins and nudges his shoulder into Kurt’s as he says, “I actually kind of like working with Santana.”

Kurt frowns, but Blaine’s too busy smiling down at his phone to notice.

\--

Blaine doesn’t notice the foot that’s sticking rather pointedly in his path until he’s already stumbling over it and resigning himself to a short, sharp landing in a miserably full corridor. The hand that catches his arm and tugs him up, keeps him balanced until he finds his feet properly again some ten steps later, comes out of nowhere.

He’s really got to ask Puck how he keeps doing that.

And, probably, why he’s still holding onto his arm, but first things first.

“Thanks,” he offers as Puck smooths the material of his sleeve that’s bunched up beneath his grip before finally releasing him.

“Don’t mention it,” Puck replies.

Blaine gets the feeling that he isn’t just talking about the face plant extravaganza he’d just helped avert but he’s feeling particularly generous now that his face hasn’t made friends with any floors recently so he just smiles and continues walking.

Puck keeps on walking with him. Which, well, new.

“I have English,” Blaine announces, because he’s curious as to the why of this situation.

“I know,” is Puck’s response and if Blaine didn’t know better he’d think that Puck was kind of, well, smiling at him.

They keep walking until they reach Blaine’s English class and Puck keeps going with only an amused, “Later, Anderson,” over his shoulder.

Huh.

\--

“He isn’t exactly Stephen Hawking,” Santana sneers as she tugs him along through the, oh my god, very crowded hallway and Blaine kind of regrets mentioning it because ears, ears everywhere, “He’s Puck. He wants to do you.”

“Totally,” Brittany adds from his other side and he feels terribly out of place, stuck between them, and not just because of the sad looks Brittany keeps shooting over the top of his head or the painful grip Santana has on his arm, keeping him lodged firmly between them like a human shield. “Puck doesn’t even like skateboards.”

Like most of the things Brittany says, Blaine files this away for later consideration. He’s starting to think they might be riddles. Or possibly secret government codes. He hasn’t decided yet.

“I have a boyfriend,” Blaine protests and Brittany offers him a high five that he thinks might be in solidarity.

“Since when has that mattered,” Santana scoffs, her fingers digging harder into his arm until he drops his hand back to his side, sans-high five, “In case you haven’t noticed it’s kind of what Puck does.”

“I think you’re reading too much into this,” Blaine denies, wiggling his fingers discretely by his side until Brittany goes for the low-five instead.

“Puck is predictable,” Santana replies firmly and digs her fingernails in a little harder in what is clearly retribution. “He’s been eying you up since your first day here, pretty boy. You’ve just been too busy pining after Hummel to notice.”

“I haven’t been pining,” Blaine says stiffly. “Kurt’s my boyfriend.”

“I went pining once,” Brittany informs him seriously, “It was really cold so I had to wear two hats. I bet your hair keeps your head really warm though. Like a sheep.”

She plucks at one of the curls behind his ear and watches it spring back with apparent fascination.

“Ugh,” Santana snaps and detaches herself from his arm, “I think I just threw up in my mouth. Go stare longingly at Hummel or something, I can’t listen to this anymore.”

He stares, stunned for a moment and doesn’t move.

“Go on,” she insists with a wave of her hand, “If you’re really lucky Hummel might carry you around in his purse and bedazzle your collar to match his outfit.”

He wants to tell her not to take her own misery out on him, to know that it’s her own pain and frustration getting the better of her. The problem with that is that even though Santana is often cruel for cruelties sake, she rarely says anything she doesn’t actually mean.

He likes to think the fuck you that never quite makes it from his tongue is heavily implied by the angry click of his boots on the floor as he stalks away.

\--

“I’m mad,” Blaine says without looking up from the screen of his phone which he is turning over and over in his hands, “I’m mad and terrible company. You should probably go.”

“I know,” Kurt replies, leaning a shoulder into the shelves of the Poetry section (not quite the same quality of light as the History section but equally deserted) and peering down at the top of his head. “Thad told me. Apparently Head of the Warbler Council awards more power than I’d previously thought, including obtaining phone numbers I was certain I never gave him and locating wayward former soloists who don’t show up for glee practice. Are you sure they never had you micro-chipped in case you wandered off?”

Blaine flinches.

“Right,” Kurt murmurs, “Well, I’m not going to say I told you so, but, well, Santana, Blaine.”

“This isn’t really helping,” he replies flatly.

“I can’t imagine how you thought texting Thad would help either,” Kurt says evenly, “But you did that and he texted me.”

Blaine thunks his head back against the books behind him miserably. “This isn’t the time, Kurt.”

“Come on,” Kurt offers, extending a hand down to him, “I refuse to sit on what is undoubtedly years of built-up dirt on tacky carpet when we could be having this conversation at The Lima Bean. I’ll buy you coffee and you can tell me how mean she is and then I can tell you all about how much I love getting texts that sign off with Head of the Warblers Council, Thad Wilson.”

“Not today,” Blaine replies quietly.

“What did she actually say to you?” Kurt asks, frowning down at him like he’s a particularly petulant child.

“Just,” Blaine sighs, “I’d like to be alone for a while, if you don’t mind. I’ll call you later.”  
Kurt stares at him, eyes narrowed in thought, before throwing up his hands in surrender and taking a step back. “Fine,” he relents, “I’ll talk to you later then.”

“Later,” Blaine agrees, his eyes fixed once again on the slow turn of his phone in his hands.

\--

Santana’s words have been burning through his thoughts all afternoon.

And really, it’s not like she’d said anything that was so much worse than any one of the dozen comments she makes on any given day. He’s doesn’t even know why it had struck a nerve, let alone such a raw one, except that yeah, maybe he does.

She’s said things before, half-hearted jabs about Blaine being just another accessory for Kurt to factor into his wardrobe, a pet, a thing for Kurt to hang off his arm. Things that burrow a little deeper beneath his skin with each passing comment, that make him wonder and he doesn’t particularly like it.

Kurt may be a fan of pretty packaging, of nice things, but he isn’t shallow. Not entirely.

And this is precisely why he hasn’t picked up his phone yet to call Kurt, as promised. In a mood like this he can’t be entirely certain of what might escape his mouth.

“Blaine?”

His father’s voice is loud, tinged with curiosity, seeping through the crack beneath his door from a distance and, well, his father doesn’t yell, never has, so he sits up and frowns at his door. He can hear clomping feet on the stairs, his father’s voice pitched low.

“Your friends are here,” his father announces as he pushes into Blaine’s room and just hovers in a way that would probably be horrifically embarrassing if Blaine could stop staring at the somewhat incongruous sight of Puck and Santana standing in his doorway. Together.

“I can’t believe you forgot about our study group,” Puck says loudly with raised eyebrows.

Now Blaine knows why his father’s so reluctant to leave. If the dress Santana’s wearing isn’t a dead give away than the loud, unsubtle clink of bottles that fills the room when Puck leans against the door frame certainly is. The sceptical, amused expression that his father directs at him makes Blaine want to bang his head into the nearest wall.

“I’ll just be downstairs,” he informs them, staring hard at Blaine in a clear warning before he shakes his head and retreats.

“You can’t wear that,” Santana informs him before his father is even two steps out the door.

She brushes past Puck to stand over Blaine’s bed with her hands on her hips, frowning down at him as she says, “There must be something in your wardrobe that doesn’t read like a private school boy fetishists wet dream.”

“I wasn’t aware study dates had dress codes,” Blaine retorts, a little frostily, because he’s still really kind of pissed at her and, for all that he has his suspicions, he has no idea why she or Puck are in his house (let alone together).

“My kind do,” she replies, turning towards his drawers to dig into them while Puck shifts closer to just sort of grin at him.

“Has it crossed your mind that I might not want to be spending time with you right now?” Blaine asks bitingly as she rummages through his drawers, tossing things aside with regularity that’s starting to make him a little self-conscious.

Puck asks, “What did I do?” in a faux-wounded tone at the precise same time that Santana makes some terribly offensive cat noise and Blaine kind of wants to stick a pillow over his face just to see if it would make this conversation go any easier.

“Not you,” Blaine tells Puck with a frustrated wave of his hand before glaring pointedly at Santana. “Her.”

“You aren’t still sulking about that are you?” she asks and the look she shoots over her shoulder is amused and a little mocking, “Here was I thinking Hummel was the high maintenance one.”

“You basically said that I’m-” he blurts out before he can reign in his tongue.

“Hummel’s bitch?” she chimes in, eyebrows raised mockingly as she stares hard at him over her shoulder, “Well if the shoe fits, princess..”

“Fuck Santana,” Puck intervenes and even he sounds uncomfortable, “I thought we were here to pick him up for the party, not make him cry.”

“You just want to get him drunk so he’ll make out with you,” Santana snipes back at Puck who doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed or well – anything, really, at that. 

Blaine thinks he might be trying to melt into the wall when she tosses a shirt at his head. It’s followed in quick succession by a pair of jeans until he’s forced to duck to avoid getting hit in the face by a belt-buckle. “Get changed. Looks like I’m your fairy godmother tonight, because clearly you need more help with this not being pathetic thing than I thought.”

“For the record,” he says as he’s tugging his shirt over his head and thinking that this is the point where he should just stay home and call Kurt and bitch about how awful Santana is. “I don’t particularly like you right now.”

“Just wait until the tequila kicks in,” Santana replies, watching blatantly as he stands to shed his sweatpants and suddenly, he thinks, that maybe the complete lack of modesty that came from living in all-boys dorms for so long was maybe not such a good thing. “You’ll love me then.”

Of course the jeans she’d chosen were ones that Kurt had helped him pick out a while back, before they’d gotten together, and Blaine sometimes has to wonder that he’d never clued in to   
Kurt’s interest in him based simply on how damn tight they are. He manages to get them buttoned, slide the belt-buckle into place and briefly considers having the conversation with Kurt about not everyone having the good fortune to have those long, coltish legs of his, again, before Santana’s shoving a pair of boots at his chest.

“I am actually capable of dressing myself, thank you,” Blaine tells her frostily as he sinks down onto his bed to tug them onto his feet.

“I hadn’t noticed,” she replies boredly, “I assumed Hummel’s been laying out your outfits for you based on the subtle colour co-ordination you’ve both been rocking lately.”

He fairly pointedly doesn’t think about morning texts and phone-calls about what he’s wearing and tugs ruthlessly at his laces. She’s messing with him.

His feet drop back to the floor with a thump and his fingers reach instinctively for his hair, still damp from the shower he’d had when he’d gotten home from school. Santana snags his wrist en route and he’s being coaxed to his feet. Her finger hooks into the v of his shirt, plucking thin black material lazily before giving him a blatant once over and deciding, “You’ll do.”

Blaine shrugs her off, his fingers burying in his hair again and he’s thinking about which products he can use while his hair is still wet and trying to squeeze past Puck in the doorway without brushing against him. Puck doesn’t move to accommodate him, simply following with his eyes as Blaine edges through the space before turning to follow, the dull clinking of bottles chiming in pursuit.

He can hear Santana murmuring something, too low for Blaine to catch, as he flicks on the light in the bathroom and goes about his routine. He manages to spray through some frizz control before Santana latches onto his arms and says into his ear, “I will make Puckerman carry you to the car if you keep stalling, you know.”

Her reflection is actually smiling at him and it softens a bit of the anger he’s been clinging to as he dabs cologne against his neck and her hands migrate to his hips, her fingers curling into his belt loops to assist in tugging him away from the mirror.

It’s weird and kind of sweet and entirely too friendly but he’s starting to wonder if it isn’t just how Santana treats her friends, her actions speaking for what she just can’t find the words to say. He makes the detour back to his room to pick up his keys and cellphone and tries to make room for them in his pockets before she pries them from his fingers, handing them over to Puck who promptly pockets them and smirks at him, eyebrows raised.

“C’mon Anderson,” Puck says as he hauls him in, tucking an arm around his shoulders to steer him towards the stairs and smirk over at him, “We have a whole lot of studying to do.”

\--

It’s loud and messy and they’ve only just gotten there, but Blaine gets the impression that everybody’s been drinking for hours. The floorboards near the stereo are shuddering with the bass, the vibrations rattle through his bones when they pass it as a half-dozen people sloppily thrash around to the music.

Santana’s grip on his wrist doesn’t lessen until they’re in the kitchen that’s overflowing with people that Blaine doesn’t know and Puck is emptying his jacket of his stash of bottles. The roar of music and drunken laughter and yelling is throbbing in his ears and Blaine likes parties, is not exactly the wallflower type, but he’s starting to think his head might actually explode.

Before he knows it Puck is pressing a cup into his hand and telling him to, “Drink up,” and this, this is the easy part.

\--

There are plenty more drinks to follow; Puck appearing with a top-up every time Blaine thinks that he might be done. He gets drawn into a conversation with faces he recognises from the McKinley Jazz Band (who apparently really do carry their instruments at the ready at all times, judging by the guy with the guitar in his lap) and it feels nice, normal somehow.

But he’s starting to feel a little too warm, a little unsteady, by the time he reaches the bottom of his fifth cup of Puck’s mystery concoction. He wanders away from the band guys with a few vague excuses and wonders where Santana disappeared to, where Puck is with his next drink before he realizes with an uncomfortable sinking sensation that he doesn’t recognize anyone at all.

And this is a problem, he thinks, because when he had gone out with his friends from Dalton, he had never had cause to worry, to feel afraid because while a zero tolerance policy didn’t automatically preclude the presence of drunken assholes, it had made for at least fifteen other guys who wouldn’t hesitate to tell someone to back the hell off.

It’s starting to hit him now, beneath the off-kilter haze of the alcohol, that is very much not the case at a McKinley party.

He doesn’t know who’s house this is and he doesn’t know Lima well enough, really, to know where he is. His phone is tucked safely away in one of Puck’s pockets and yeah, he’s certain those guys by the stereo who might be looking at him are on the hockey team. He’s far too aware of Puck’s absence, of the empty corner where Santana had been attached at the mouth to some guy from the basketball team.

Blaine’s already learnt the hard way what it means to have to be careful.

He needs air.

He berates himself for his own stupidity as he pushes through the kitchen where a crowd is gathered around the keg yelling enthusiastically about.. something and stumbles out onto the porch, unsure when exactly he’d begun practically gasping for breath.

The rush of cold air stings his eyes, coaxes goosebumps up his bare arms, but it feels good, clears his head a little. He sucks it in deep and leans back against the porch railing, closing his eyes and just breathing through it until:

“What are you doing here, fairyboy?”

Of course.

“Same thing as you, I’d imagine Karofsky,” he replies without opening his eyes.

Of course Karofsky would be outside, drinking alone in the dark at a party.

“What, did Hummel finally decide he’s had enough of you?” the sneer is too intent, too interested (a little slurred) and Blaine’s chest coils in tight because he’d had enough of Karofsky and his issues long before he transferred.

“Even if he had,” Blaine replies as evenly as he can, peering through the dark to where Karofsky is sitting on a couch tucked back in the shadows, a beer bottle pinched between his thumb and fingers, “You’d still never have a chance with him.”

Karofsky makes a low, dark noise and Blaine hears the clunk as he sets his beer bottle down on the porch, the creak of the boards beneath Karofsky’s weight.

This, Blaine thinks, is when he should be running. He was always fast, too fast for the small-minded idiots back then. But alcohol makes him slow, makes him stupid and just a little bit stubborn, has him spaghetti-limbed and draped against the porch railing and thinking that, wow, this really was the worst idea ever.

“You’re fucking wasted,” Karofsky scoffs, his eyes a dark flicker in the night as they stray from Blaine’s face to his shoes and back again, taking their time to linger along the way.

Which, well, hypocritical much? Blaine can smell the beer on him from here, which, okay, really not that far away now that he thinks about it. Way too close, in fact.

“What would prissy little Hummel think about this, huh?”

There’s a solid jab of a finger against his chest and he frowns down at it, suddenly acutely   
aware of the railing digging into his spine as he sways away from the intrusion into his space. His voice is unsteady despite his best intentions as he says, “He’d probably think you should get away from his boyfriend.”

Karofsky sneers silently, his lip curling as he looks away into the unlit backyard but he doesn’t move and all Blaine can really think is too close.

“You really aren’t that smart are you, pretty boy?” Karofsky says and Blaine has to fight the urge to try and squirm away as a large hand drops onto his shoulder, the drag of a callused thumb rolling up the line of his throat.

“I’m not the one who thought threatening to kill someone would make them like him,” Blaine replies and god, it’s like he has no control whatsoever over what’s coming out of his mouth.

“Who said I liked him?” Karofsky replies stiffly.

He can feel fingers digging deep into his shoulder and that intense fixed gaze is rendered dark and utterly unreadable in the dim porch light. It makes Blaine feel contained and shuddery and sick.

“You’re really kind of obvious,” Blaine says and now he is squirming, trying to shake Karofsky’s hand off of his shoulder because the sheer proximity is setting Blaine on edge and he really wishes that someone, anyone would come outside now.

He can smell cheap beer, heavy in the air between them and the small victory of that hand dropping off of his shoulder is overshadowed by Karofsky’s hands fisting around the railing on either side of Blaine’s hips, boxing him in and the clipped, angry, “You know nothing about me.”

And, see, all Blaine can think is that Karofsky hasn’t even been bothering them at school. He thinks about how, while Santana’s insane Anti-Bullying club scheme may have failed spectacularly, Karofsky has somehow stayed roped into Kurt’s PFLAG scheme. How he’s backed right off, kept his head down and, according to Kurt at least, been working on himself. How Kurt no longer flinches every time a locker door closes too close to him. Stopped jumping at large, letterman jacket wearing shadows.

Blaine had thought that he was making progress. That he was sorry for everything he’d put Kurt through, everything he’d done. Apparently he was wrong.

There’s a hand on his hip, a rough thumb that dips beneath the hem of his t-shirt and drags across his skin. He shies away from it, corralled uselessly into another unyielding arm. Karofsky is a little angry, a whole lot drunk and Blaine has no escape route.

He wishes Karofsky would hit him, would shove him, would do something other than stand over him, staring like that. Blaine’s hands are shaking.

“What is your problem?” tumbles out into the night before Blaine can stop it and his stupid shaking hands are largely unsuccessful as they plant against Karofsky’s chest and push back, demanding space, because the silence is setting his nerves on fire.

“You,” Karofsky sneers back stealing back the space Blaine’s shove had placed between them and Blaine doesn’t, generally, feel like a small person – he isn’t, really - but Karofsky towers over him. “You’re my problem, pretty boy, what does he even-“

“Hey-“

The creak of the door is a relief, the gleam of the kitchen lights bouncing off of Sam Evans’ hair too good to be true as he half-stumbles onto the porch, squinting through the dark at them. “Hey man, that’s not cool – get off.”

He can’t imagine what Sam thinks he’s walking into, but Karofsky’s arms fly up in a gesture of innocence, shrugging off Sam’s grip as he scoffs, “Fuck off, Evans. Me and Fairyboy were just having a little chat.”

Blaine watches Karofsky shoulder past Sam and slip into the house without a backward glance. He’s shaking and he wants to say it’s from the cold but when he opens his mouth he can practically taste the smell of cheap beer on the air.

He feels sick.

“Hey,” Sam’s saying as he turns around, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans, “I thought I saw you come out here. Puck was looking for you.”

He isn’t really looking at Blaine, he keeps frowning down at his sneakers. “Karofsky can be a total dick sometimes,” he adds in a sudden rush, his eyes shifting back to Blaine’s face for a second before he says, “Man, you look really pale. You aren’t going to throw up are you?”

He feels jittery, scatter-brained, his heart jack-hammering in his chest as he looks away and says, “I’m fine,” and then stumbles over, “Thanks, Sam.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Sam replies and he sounds like he means it, the not mentioning it part at least. He shifts uncomfortably and the boards creak beneath his feet.

The door creaks again and Blaine tenses but it’s only followed by a familiar scoff of, “Hey Guppy Lips, there you are. Open up, I want to check that you didn’t yawn and accidentally swallow the Warbler.”

“Give it a rest, Santana,” Sam bites back but she’s already dismissed him in favour of levelling an annoyed stare at Blaine.

“There you are,” she announces as she closes the distance and hooks her elbow through his, “Puckerman’s been checking the kitchen cabinets for the past fifteen minutes.”

Which, well.

“Why?”

She doesn’t appear to hear him, instead she’s saying, “This party blows,” as she drags him towards the door. He wonders what happened to her basketball player. “We need to drink more.”  
His stomach rolls at even the suggestion. He starts to say, “I don’t-“, and her eyes turn towards him, loaded with scorn.

“You better not be piking out on me Anderson,” she’s saying before she stops abruptly, frowning and he’s jerked to a halt by her grip on his arm. “Hold up, what’s wrong with your face?”

Blaine blinks. “What?”

“Your face,” she repeats, clearly annoyed at having to do so, before something clearly clicks and her fingers dig into his arm. “What did Evans do?”

“Sam didn’t do anything,” he replies, bewildered.

“Bullshit,” she declares darkly and starts dragging him back the way they’d come, “Trouty Mouth opened his giant gob and lost his fucking foot in it. What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Blaine repeats firmly and he just feels off, disconnected, as he says, “Karofsky was just-“

She lets out an angry huff of air as she closes in against his side, snarls, “We’re going. This party blows anyway,” and tugs him across the kitchen.

He catches a glimpse of blonde from the corner of his eye as she snags a mostly-full bottle of something blue from the kitchen island and yells, “Puckerman, we’re out. Now,” at the back of a Mohawk that is ducked into the cupboards beneath the sink.

He must have heard her because they haven’t even reached the hallway before there’s a lazy warmth pressed into Blaine’s other side, an arm draping heavily across his shoulders and hot breath against his ear as Puck drawls, “Geeze, Anderson, where’d you disappear to?”

And Blaine can see Karofsky from the corner of his eye, wedged onto a couch in a crowd of Letterman jackets and he looks so pissed, his fingers clenched around another beer bottle, and Santana’s grip on Blaine’s arm tightens as they push through the front door and Karofsky is put far behind them.

“What did he do?” Santana demands the moment that the throbbing bass fades behind a closed door and they’re a stumbling, six-legged mess picking their way back to the street.

“What did who do?” Puck asks, blankly, peering between them in curiosity.

“It’s not a big deal,” Blaine sighs, because in spite of everything that went down last year with   
Santana and Karofsky there are some secrets that even Santana doesn’t know and this really wasn’t about him at all.

“I will go back in there and beat it out of Evans,” she warns him sharply, pressing up into his personal space with a sneer.

“Who-“ Puck starts to ask again and Blaine sighs.

“He’s drunk and an idiot,” Blaine replies firmly, “Nothing that I haven’t had to deal with before.”

Which, well, not entirely true and Santana knows it, he can tell by the oh, please roll of her eyes, but Puck is frowning now and probably a whole lot less drunk than he wants Blaine to think he is.

“Right,” Santana replies. “Well, since our sober driver isn’t exactly sober,” she glares pointedly at Puck, “It looks like we’re walking.”

Blaine frowns, “My house is-“

“My house is two blocks from here,” Santana cuts over him, “Puckerman give him your jacket. It’s cold.”

Blaine doesn’t really process what she’s said until Puck’s shrugging his jacket off and he doesn’t even seem bothered by the demand as he holds it out like he’s waiting for Blaine to step into it. It’s simultaneously the strangest and most gentlemanly thing Blaine has ever seen Puck do.

Santana’s kind of smirking at him, her own jacket tugged tight around her and it’s all just a little too neat, enough so that Blaine wonders if this might have been part of some elaborate plan. He accepts the jacket because Puck is staring at him expectantly and tries to ignore the smirk Puck’s wearing when Blaine lets him help slip it over his shoulders.

She moves in close again to snag his arm and tug him down the sidewalk and Blaine can feel bottles knocking against his ribs from where they’re tucked into inner pockets and the pound of feet from where Puck has to run a bit to catch up and sling his arm back over Blaine’s shoulders. It’s all a bit weird. A little contrived.

But at least he’s warm now, wrapped up in arms and borrowed jackets and phantom body-heat as they stumble down the deserted sidewalks, their shadows stretched thin by the glow of streetlights and the buzz of alcohol feels less oppressive, less menacing than earlier, fading into something a bit more pleasant.

He realizes, with some surprise, that in spite of everything he’s had fun hanging out with Santana and Puck. That, huddled between them in some six-legged, tangle-armed mash of people, is the first time that he’s felt like maybe he would be an option, at least, if anyone were to make them choose between him and Kurt.

It feels nice.  
\--

Blaine has an obnoxiously fast metabolism.

Everyone he’s ever known (read: gone drinking with) has agreed that he is never to be allowed in their sights until their hangovers have reached an, at least, manageable state.

That doesn’t mean he’s never been hung over. That he doesn’t get hangovers, because he does. They just pass faster than most peoples.

Or at least, that’s what he’s trying to remind himself of as he buries his face into a pillow that he knows isn’t his and tries to ignore the throbbing of his head. There’s something warm half-draped over him and he doesn’t want to think too hard about the way it seems to be breathing.

He’ll deal with the obnoxious headache first, thank you.

“Think about moving and I will end you,” someone that sounds a whole lot like Santana threatens from beneath a pile of blankets.

“I’ll stop moving when the bed does,” Blaine breathes back, wincing as he cracks open an eye to scout his surroundings a little better.

Not his bed.

Okay then.

He squishes his eyes shut again because dark is good and even very dim light is bad.

“I find your voice grating,” Santana rasps back and she doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the fact that she’s got a leg twisted between his and that there’s no space at all between them.  
Blaine’s kind of really bothered by it even though he’s certain that there is no real reason to be bothered by it. Kurt would be bothered by it.

That might have something to do with it.

“Cold,” Santana gripes and tugs at her covers to bundle them closer to herself and one of his legs is suddenly bare to the morning air.

“Cold,” he gasps back and drags his leg in beneath the covers and tugs them in around him, ignoring her protests, because this isn’t weird, he’s gay and she’s well, he’s pretty sure she’s completely in love with Brittany even if she doesn’t want to talk about it or use that word.

He cracks an eye open as she makes a noise of protest and there’s mascara smeared beneath her eyes and her hair is everywhere and he can’t help it, he’s muffling laughter into her pillow even though everything hurts.

“Oh my god, shut up,” she hisses, “I will not hesitate to gag you.”

“Kinky,” someone grunts from the floor and Blaine winces.

“Puckerman, if you want to ever be allowed inside my house ever again, you will shut your mouth now,” Santana calls, loudly enough that Blaine winces again and tries to bury his head beneath the covers.

“You made me sleep on the floor,” Puck scoffs back, “And Anderson’s boyfriend won’t stop texting him and it’s keeping me up. I never knew Hummel was so needy.”

And that, that gets Blaine’s attention.

“Give me my phone,” he’s mumbling as he tries to extract himself from Santana’s leech-like arms and the tangle of blankets and he almost tumbles off the edge of the bed right onto Puck, who is smirking up at him from the floor.

“No way,” Puck retorts, “He’s just started getting bitchy. It’s hilarious.”

Blaine’s starting to think that Puck hadn’t been half-as-drunk the previous night as he’d wanted them to think he was.

“Phone,” he demands because his head is pounding and his eyes hurt and he wants to just crawl back under the covers because it really is cold but he’d told Kurt that he was going to call him and then he hadn’t and he’s really the worst boyfriend ever.

“Oh, oh,” Puck says, holding up a hand as Blaine’s phone buzzes in his hand again, “That one’s from your dad, again.”

Oh god, his dad.

“Phone,” he insists, leaning over the edge of the bed to try and swipe it from Puck’s hand but he’s holding it to the side and grinning.

“No way,” Puck retorts, “Me and your dad are pals now. He thinks I’m your responsible friend.”

“Oh my god,” Blaine breathes wide-eyed as he stretches for the phone, “Have you been answering my texts?”

“Someone named Nick wants to know if you’re going to be at Crew training,” Puck replies nonchalantly. “He also wants to know why you’re leaving your phone with random boys.”

“This isn’t happening,” Blaine mutters to himself.

“Oh my god, would you two quit flirting and just shut up,” Santana snarls and he’s pretty sure she just kicked him.

He manages to not fall on Puck with some fairly coordinated flailing and ends up with his face mushed into the floor and his knees stinging from carpet burn. His quiet, “Ouch,” which is as much for his poor head than the fact that he’d just fallen off of Santana’s bed is muffled by Puck’s obnoxious laughter.

“You’re such a lightweight,” Puck scoffs, his fingers still closed around Blaine’s phone and the sound of Blackbird filling Santana’s room makes him dive for it because no way is Puck answering his phone when Kurt’s trying to call him.

Puck doesn’t seem to get the memo, he answers with a bored, “Yeah?” and uses a hand to ward Blaine off.

“Uh huh, he’s right here,” Puck adds and Blaine can just barely make out the sound of Kurt’s voice through the phone.

And, really, that’s enough because Kurt’s probably already pissed at him and for all that Puck talks about Kurt being his boy or whatever, Puck takes far too much pleasure in winding people up, so Blaine decides to take drastic measures.

That’s how he ends up practically sitting on top of Puck and snatching the phone from his fingers as he’s in the middle of saying what Blaine sincerely hopes wasn’t don’t get your panties in a twist and babbling, “Oh my god, Kurt, I’m so sorry,” into the receiver.

There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone, followed by a blunt, “Why, exactly, is Puck answering your phone at nine in the morning on a Saturday?”

Blaine’s head throbs in protest and he grimaces as he replies, “Because he has no concept of boundaries?”

There’s a soft huff on the other end of the line like Kurt had maybe thought about laughing for just a moment before he sighs. “Seriously, Blaine? What’s going on?”

“Santana and Puck dragged me to some party last night,” Blaine replies, before he’s gasping with surprise and trying to squirm away from the fingers that are suddenly digging into his ribs. He glares a warning at Puck from his new location (some three feet away) and adds, “I’m not sure, but I think I may have actually escaped the night with my dignity intact.”

“That would be a first,” Kurt replies after a strained moment. “So I take it you aren’t at your house?”

“Santana’s.”

\--

fade out / fade in

\--  
Blaine is (kind of pointedly) not paying attention when it all happens.

He’s busy trying to wedge his English binder into his overcrowded locker, fervently ignoring the revelation that Karofsky’s locker is really not that far from his because it hadn’t mattered before and it’s not like it matters now. Maybe Karofsky had stared at him a little strangely during first period but what happened at the party was, as far as Blaine’s concerned, more than welcome to stay there.

He does notice when the steady chattering around him starts to slow and stutters to a halt, looking up from his locker warily because silence never means anything good in a high school corridor. What he sees, when the silence breaks for gasps and yells and cheering (and god, what is wrong with these people), is a blur of motion as Puck slams into Karofsky at speed and there’s a deafening crash of metal when they both tumble into the locker bay.

Even the goading from the ring of spectators isn’t loud enough to drown out the swearing and the yelling and the sounds of fists meeting flesh and Blaine’s feet are rooted to the floor, his mind stumbling over the laundry list of why Puck would want to beat Karofsky’s face in and risk getting sent back to Juvie and then it hits him. Blaine feels like his stomach has dropped to his feet. Puck knows.

Suddenly Blaine’s tripping over his own feet to squeeze through the crowd and Karofsky is shouting about not knowing what Puck’s problem is as they slam into another wall and this can not be happening. He can’t even see either of them anymore but he can hear them, the grunts of pain and fists and the yelling and Blaine knows that Puck has something of a reputation for this kind of thing, for being a badass as he likes to put it, but this is different.

Then he’s managed to push his way into the inner circle and suddenly he wishes that he’d taken the opposite direction because what the hell is he supposed to do now?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Karofsky is scoffing as he pushes Puck back a few steps, but he looks like he’s ten seconds away from panicking and Blaine doubts it has anything to do with Puck’s fists.

“Sam told me what you did,” Puck replies and he’s so loud and, oh god, what if he says something? That must be why Karofsky’s eyeing the crowd like a wild animal looking for a way out and why he actually recoils when he see’s Blaine standing there.

“Evans doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about,” Karofsky spits back as he keeps on looking for an exit and Blaine knows this is getting out of hand when Puck pushes back into Karofksy’s space and shoves, hard.

This isn’t supposed to happen.

Karofsky has never been Blaine’s battle, not really, especially not now. After everything, this shouldn’t be the reason that Puck loses it.


End file.
